Abstract: The risk of vehicle theft is substantially diminished with an arrangement employs a decoder that is integrally coupled to, or embedded in, one or more operating elements of a vehicle that are controlled with an electrical signal.

Abstract: The risk of vehicle theft is substantially diminished with an arrangement employs a decoder that is integrally coupled to, or embedded in, one or more operating elements of a vehicle that are controlled with an electrical signal. The decoder is constructed to be responsive to an encoded signal that is generated with a security device, such as a keypad.

Abstract: An improved system is realized with an arrangement which takes advantage of affiliations that allow concentration of billing. In situations where a party is willing to serve as a financial surrogate for some subscribers of a services provider, savings can be realized by sending the bills for charges accrued by those subscribers ("affiliated subscribers") directly to such a surrogate. The surrogate pays the bills of the affiliated subscribers and may make its own arrangement with the affiliated subscribers to be appropriately compensated. The disclosed method and arrangement employs an affiliation database file to provide information as to who is a financial surrogate for others. Data which affiliates particular subscribers to particular financial surrogates may be under control of the services provider or under control of the financial surrogates. The billing process utilizes the information that identifies financial surrogates and the information about the affiliations of affiliated subscribers.

Abstract: An enhanced response unit that is able to send visual information to the customer as well as voice information, thereby providing the customer with a powerful and satisfying mechanism with which to achieve the desired result. The unit determines whether the CPE calling the unit is capable of interacting with visual information and adjusts its mode of operation accordingly. Because two channels of information are available, various capabilities are easily implemented such as interacting with users in visual mode and in aural mode simultaneously, such as recalling the visual menu process anytime, etc. The improved unit also allows for convenient linking, in response to an appropriate choice made by the customer, to a physically different response unit that provides its own menu.

Abstract: The number of times that a subscriber is forced to add an area code to his or her dialing sequence is substantially reduced by allowing calling parties to dial without including the area code, by analyzing the called party number relative to the calling party, and by resolving ambiguities in the called number based on that analysis. The analysis includes, but is not limited to, taking account of the calling pattern of the calling subscriber, and taking account of the distance between the calling and the called parties.

Abstract: An icon positioning device with a keypad, telephone circuit, speaker and microphone is used as part of an interface system to a computer and a telephone network. The icon positioning device is used to control a position of an icon on the computer's display. The keypad on the positioning device is used to enter information into the computer and to control communication over a telephone network. In addition, the computer displays icons that are representative of the keys composing the positioning device's keypad. When one of the keys is activated, the corresponding icon on the computer's display changes appearance. Thus, the positioning device serves as a multi-featured control apparatus, as a pointing device, and as a telephone.

Abstract: A telephone instrument with computing means and a memory that stores a number of dialed numbers. The computing means follows a process that is responsive to the "re-dial" button of the telephone instrument and to the "#" and "*" buttons on the dial pad. The process provides a "backup" capability that points to successively older entries in the memory, thereby allowing a user to dial out older entries, and also provides a search function that searches through the memory for a specified number.