JPH08242280A - Voice mail device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Purpose] To provide a voice mail device capable of recognizing voice mail and identifying the sender of the voice mail. When a call to the telephone 100 is not answered, a voice mail is input from the voice circuit 102 to a voice recognition unit 103, and the voice mail is voice-recognized and converted into character data composed of kana. . Next, CPU1
Reference numeral 04 refers to some keywords stored in the RAM 105 in advance to identify the sender of the voice mail, analyzes the character data, and identifies the sender of the voice mail. The sender and the information associated with the sender thus identified are displayed on the display unit 1.
It is displayed on 10.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a voice mail device,
In particular, for example, it relates to a voice mail device incorporated in a telephone or a private branch exchange to record and reproduce voice data from a communication line.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a voice mail for storing voice data from a line in a storage medium and reproducing the recorded voice data to the terminal in response to a request from the terminal. There is a device. In the voice mail device, in addition to the reproduced voice data for the request terminal, the date, time, voice data recording time of recording the voice data,
Information such as reproduction history is also output and displayed on the display unit of the terminal. In this way, in addition to the information obtained from the voice data, the accompanying information can be obtained, and the obtained mail must be answered in a hurry, or it has already been reproduced, so it is not necessary to reproduce it this time. , Help the recipient of the email take appropriate action.

However, even if the above information is displayed before the reproduction of the voice data, it may be difficult to predict the content of the mail or to judge whether the mail is necessary for the user. As one method for solving this problem, there is a device configured to display who is the sender of the mail, and various methods for realizing this have been proposed.

For example, when a mail is received from a network for notifying the caller number such as ISDN, a method of discriminating the caller based on the notified caller number and an announcement prompting the input of the caller number are issued. Caller's number (DTMF signal) entered by the caller using the PB dial after going to the person
There is a method of discriminating the sender based on the.

[0005]

However, the above-mentioned conventional example has the following drawbacks. (1) If the caller number is not notified to the voice mail device from the network or the partner terminal, the caller cannot be identified by the notification of the caller number. (2) In the case of the method of inputting the caller number by the PB dial, the operation of inputting the caller's number is necessary in order to transmit the caller number as the PB sound (DTMF signal) on the caller side, which is very troublesome. . In addition, when a representative number is shared by a plurality of people like in a company organization, there is a drawback that it is not possible to specify which person has transmitted the mail only by inputting the sender number (representative number).

The present invention has been made in view of the above conventional example, and an object thereof is to provide a voice mail device capable of predicting the contents of a voice mail without listening to the contents.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, the voice mail apparatus of the present invention has the following configuration. That is, a voice mail device built in a telephone directly connected to a communication line for recording and reproducing voice data received from the communication line as a voice mail, the receiving means receiving the voice mail, and the received voice. First storage means for storing a mail, second storage means for storing a keyword for specifying a sender of the voice mail from the voice mail, and voice recognition means for voice-recognizing the voice mail and converting it into character data. And analysis means for analyzing the character data based on the keyword stored in the second storage means to identify the sender of the voice mail, and display means for displaying information about the identified sender. And a voice mail device.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a voice mail device which is built in an exchange directly connected to a communication line and records and reproduces voice data received from the communication line as voice mail. Receiving means for receiving, first storing means for storing the received voice mail, second storing means for storing a keyword for identifying a sender of the voice mail from the voice mail, and voice recognition of the voice mail. Voice recognition means for converting the character data into character data, analysis means for analyzing the character data based on the keyword stored in the second storage means, and specifying the sender of the voice mail, and the specified transmission. And a transfer unit for transferring information about a person to a terminal device controlled by the exchange.

[0009]

With the above construction, the present invention is used by being incorporated in a telephone or an exchange that is directly connected to a communication line, and stores a keyword for identifying the sender of the voice mail and stores the received voice mail. It recognizes voice and converts it to character data, analyzes the character data based on the stored keywords, identifies the sender of the voice mail, displays information about the identified sender, or Operates to transfer to the controlling terminal device.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a telephone having a voice mail function which is a typical embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the telephone 10 of the present embodiment.
0 is connected to the network 111, and the telephone 1
It is possible to talk and communicate with other telephones represented by 12. The telephone 100 recognizes the voice data output from the outside line interface (i / f) 101 and the voice circuit 102, and the voice recognition unit 103 performs voice recognition.
Determine what words were pronounced. The entire telephone is controlled by the CPU 104, and temporary data necessary for the operation of the telephone is stored in the RAM 105. As other components, the ROM 106 in which the program expressing the operation logic of the telephone is stored, the speaker 10
7, a microphone 108, a keyboard 109, and a display 110 such as an LCD for displaying various information.

The telephone 100 also has the following answering machine functions. That is, the outside line interface (i / f) 101 has a function of detecting an incoming ringer from the network 111, and when an incoming call is received, the ringer is detected by the C
Tell PU104. When the CPU 104 is notified of the ringer detection, it causes the speaker 107 to ring a ring tone and counts the number of times the ringer is detected. If the number of detections exceeds a predetermined number, the outside line interface (i / f) 1
01 closes the loop and automatically answers the incoming call.

Referring to the flow chart shown in FIG. 2, the information relating to the voice mail shown in FIG. 3, and the display example of the display 110 shown in FIG. 4, regarding the operation relating to the voice mail function of the telephone having the above-mentioned configuration. Explain. here,
Think of the phone as waiting for an incoming call. First,
In step S10, another telephone, for example, the telephone 11
When it is confirmed that there is an incoming call from the telephone 110 to the telephone 110, the process proceeds to step S20, and a ringing tone is emitted from the speaker 107 a predetermined number of times to notify that there is an incoming call. Here, if a person picks up a handset (not shown) of the telephone and responds to the call while the ringing sound is ringing a predetermined number of times, the process ends,
If not, the process proceeds to step S30 and the telephone automatically answers as described above.

In this embodiment, the response message is RA
It is stored in M105, and in step S30,
The CPU 104 reads the message data and sends it to the outside line through the voice circuit 102. The response message is, for example, "I am out of the office right now. If you have a business need, please leave a message."
This prompts the speaker of telephone 112 to leave a voicemail. The process proceeds to step S40, and the caller (here, the speaker of the telephone 112) sends a voice mail to the telephone 10.
Check to see if you left it at 0. If the voice mail is not left, the process ends. If it is determined that the voice mail is left, the process proceeds to step S50. Here, I say "Hello, I'm Koichi Oi of Tokyo Sales Department, Marukoshi Corporation, 2nd section, but I called you about XXX. I'll call you up again tomorrow." Suppose

In step S50, the processing stores the voice data in the RAM 105. And step S
In 60, the audio data is transmitted through the audio circuit 102.
Input to the voice recognition unit 103 to perform voice recognition. In the voice recognition unit 103, the input voice data is sequentially read from the beginning,
The recognition is performed and the recognition result is transmitted to the CPU 104.
If the above-mentioned voice mail is left, the output sent to the CPU 104 will say "Hello, I, Maruetsu Shoji and Tokyo University The character data will be "Tomorrow, I will give you a call again." This is because the voice recognition unit 103 recognizes a Japanese pronunciation and converts it into character data, and can determine a break in pronunciation as a punctuation mark, but cannot analyze a word or a syntax. Therefore, conversion into kanji considering the meaning of voice data has not been done at this stage.

Next, the process proceeds to step S70, where CP
The U 104 analyzes this character data and determines who the voice mail is from based on the following information stored in the RAM 105. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing examples of various keywords stored in the RAM 105. R
In the AM 105, data associated with the data of the person indicated by the keyword is stored in a table format. C
The PU 104 searches the above character data input from the voice recognition unit 103 for a keyword as shown in FIG. According to this example, the character data of "Maruetsu Shoji", "Tokyo Keiei Gyobudai Niika", and "Ooi" are detected, and this voice mail is from the person shown in the first row of FIG. Is specified. The information specified in this way is stored in a predetermined area of the RAM 105. This information is stored until the user operates the keyboard 109 to perform an erasing operation.

After this identification, the process proceeds to step S80, and the RAM 105 is shown to indicate that there is a voice mail.
Based on the information stored in the predetermined area of the display 110
Is displayed as "There is a message, Maruetsu Corporation Tokyo Sales Department 2nd Section Koichi Oi". It goes without saying that there are various display methods depending on the type of the display device 110. For example, if there is facial photograph data of the person who left the voice mail, it may be displayed. Alternatively, if the number of digits displayed on the display device 110 is small, there is a possibility that only "Marui Kosho Shoei 2 Oi" will be displayed. In other words, the result of voice recognition and the analysis of character data is not displayed as it is, but it is displayed so that it is clear who left the voice mail.

In consideration of the above, the display area of the display can be considered and the display area can be used most effectively, and it is possible to display a plurality of voice mails. Therefore, it can be said that the readability of voice mail information is greatly improved. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example in which a plurality of pieces of voice mail information are displayed on the display device 110. In FIG. 4, among the information stored in the RAM 105, the information about the oldest voice mail is displayed at the top of the display screen, and each time the information about a new voice mail is stored, it is additionally displayed in the lower row. It Further, the characters "done" and "not yet" at the left end of the display screen of FIG. 4 are listening history information indicating whether the voice mail has already been listened to or has not been listened to. The display in the second row is highlighted, which shows the state in which the device user has selected to listen to the voice mail corresponding to the information, such as the cursor key on the keyboard 109 ( (Not shown), an arbitrary voice mail can be selected. Therefore, in the example shown in FIG. 4, the voice mail on the second stage of the display screen is in the selected state, but it is possible to change the voice mail to the selected state on the third stage and reproduce it. You can listen to the desired voice mail regardless of the order in which the mail was left. The selected voice mail can be played back or deleted by operating the keyboard 109.

When a delete operation is performed here, RA
The related information stored in M105 is also deleted at the same time. Furthermore, when listening to the voice mail in the "not yet" state for the first time, the CPU 104 detects this and changes the listening history information from the "not yet" state to the "completed" state. As shown in FIG. 4, if the display device 110 can display information on a plurality of voice mails at a time, the readability is the best, but even if the display area is small and only one voice mail can be displayed, By operating a scroll key or the like (not shown) on the keyboard 109, the display of the sender of the voice mail is switched one after another, and the device may be configured so that the voice mail can be reproduced for the information of the voice mail being displayed.

In the above example, the sender of the voice mail has described the example in which the company name, affiliation, name, etc. of his own company are correctly left as information, but omitting his company name, affiliation, name, etc. The device according to the present embodiment can deal with the case of sounding. For example, when a voice mail sender says "I'm Ooi from Marukoshi Sales Department 2 ..." when leaving a voice mail, that is, no company name, affiliation name, or name is pronounced as an official name. Consider the case. In order to deal with such a case, the RAM 105 is provided with a table having a structure capable of storing a plurality of pronunciations of the company name, the affiliation name, and the name pronunciation, as shown in FIG. As for the pronunciation of the company name of the person, "Maruetsu" or "Maruetsu" may be used. Another name like this is 2
It goes without saying that the number is not limited to one, and any number may be used as long as the capacity of the RAM allows.

Also, in the analysis of the character data in step 70, it is not necessary to recognize all the company name, affiliation name and name. In short, it is only necessary to identify the sender, so one person can be identified. It is only necessary to be able to detect keywords that can be used. For example, it suffices to specify one person (for example, the person in the first row of the table in FIG. 3) who is also only from the character string "Ooi Hirokazu". However,
In the case where a voice mail saying "I am Ooi of Marukoshi ..." is recorded (that is, the sender cannot be identified from the information of the keyword shown in FIG. 3 stored in advance), the information available in step S70 is used. The senders are used as much as possible to narrow down the senders, and all the last-remaining persons are considered as potential senders. As a result, in the subsequent step S80, the display 110 displays "Message is available, Koichi Oi or Ichiro Oi" or the like.

Therefore, according to the present embodiment, the voice mail is recognized by voice to generate character data, and the character data is analyzed based on the keyword stored in advance to determine who the sender of the voice mail is. Since the specified information is displayed and the specified information is displayed, the recipient of the voice mail can know who is the sender without listening to the contents of the voice mail. This has the advantage that the recipient of the voice mail can identify the importance of the voice mail to some extent without listening to the voice mail, and does not have to listen to unnecessary voice mail.

In this embodiment, the pronunciations of the company name, affiliation name and name as shown in FIG. 3 are used as keywords for identifying the sender of the voice mail, but the present invention is not limited to this. . All words that can be pronounced by the person who leaves the voice mail are targeted, and may be, for example, occupation name, nickname, school name, secret word, or the like.

[0023]

[Other Embodiments] In the above-mentioned embodiments, an example of using a telephone having a built-in voice recognition and character data analysis function has been described, but in the present embodiment, a case where the PBX has a voice recognition and character data analysis function is described. explain. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the PBX 401 according to this embodiment. Figure 5
In the above, the same components as those described in the above-mentioned embodiment are designated by the same reference numerals. Therefore, a description of these same components will be omitted here, and only the characteristic parts of the present embodiment and the operation thereof will be described.

The PBX 401 has an external line interface (i / f) 101, a memory time switch (MTS) 402 for exchanging time slots, and an MFT interface (MFTi / f) 403 for connecting a multifunction telephone (MFT) as an extension terminal. , PC interface (P) for connecting a personal computer (PC) as an extension terminal
Ci / f) 404, voice recognition unit 103, central control unit (CC) 406 that controls the entire PBX, memory 40 that stores temporary data and programs necessary for the operation of the PBX.
7. It has a hard disk (HD) 411 for storing voice data of voice mail.

Further, in FIG. 5, reference numeral 408 denotes a multi-function telephone (MF) connected to the MFT interface 403.
T), 409 is a personal computer (PC) connected to the PC interface 404, and 410 is CC406.
Personal computer (PC) directly connected to the PBX 401 and used for maintenance, data management, relay stand service, etc.
Is.

Next, the operation of the PBX 401 having the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. It is assumed that the PBX 401 also has an answering machine function (automatic answer) similar to that described in the above-mentioned embodiment, and the same processing steps as those described in the above-mentioned embodiment are included in the flowchart shown in FIG. The same step reference numbers are given and the description will not be repeated.

After confirming the incoming call in step S10, P
In step S120, the BX 401 checks whether the telephone set of the person (communication partner) intended by the caller is busy. Here, if busy, the process proceeds to step S30, but if not busy, the process proceeds to step S123. Next, in step S123, it is checked whether or not the communication partner responds, and if the ring tone responds while ringing a predetermined number of times, the process ends, but if not, the process proceeds to step S125, and someone else To see if it responded. The process of step S125 is also determined by whether or not there is a response while ringing the ringing sound a predetermined number of times.

Now, in step S125, if no other person answers, that is, if no one answers the call whose incoming call is confirmed in step S10, the process proceeds to step S30.
Then, the processing as described in the above embodiment is performed and the voice recognition is started. On the other hand, if someone else (agent) responds to the ringing tone, the process proceeds to step S.
Proceed to 130 and the agent will say "I will contact you later.
I will ask you what you have said, "and perform the prescribed operation to leave a voice mail. Then, the telephone 112
The time slot containing the voice data of the operator is connected to the extension terminal of the agent, and is also connected to the voice recognition unit 405. Thereafter, the process proceeds to step S50,
From that point, the words spoken by the operator of the telephone 112 are recorded as a voice mail and voice recognition is started.

To summarize the above, there are two triggers for the PBX 401 to start recording voice mail, and voice recognition and analysis thereof. One is the PBX 401 as in the above-mentioned embodiment.
It is due to the automatic response of. That is, when an incoming call is made directly from the telephone 112 to the extension controlled by the PBX 401 by dial-in, direct dial-in (DID), or the like, the extension of the called party is busy or at a predetermined time (predetermined time). If no response is made during the ringing of the number of times, the CC 406 determines that the external line interface 101
In this case, the loop is closed to automatically respond and the time slot of the external line is connected to the voice recognition unit 405. As a result, the words spoken by the caller of the telephone 112 are recognized from the beginning.

The other is the operation of the extension terminal of the PBX 401. That is, from the telephone 112 to the PBX4
In this case, when an incoming call arrives at a certain extension 01, someone other than the communication partner responds and performs a predetermined operation for leaving a voice mail. Thus, the words spoken by the operator of the telephone 112 from the time when the operation is completed are recognized from this time.

The destination of the voice mail can be discriminated from the PBX 401 from the outside line by dial-in or DID.
When the PBX 401 directly receives an incoming call, the PBX 401 identifies the destination of the voice mail from the dial-in number or the designated extension number. On the other hand, when voice mail recording is started by the operation of the agent, the agent presses an extension number that identifies the destination or a one-touch key that has a one-to-one correspondence with the telephone of the original communication partner, etc. And specify the destination.

On the other hand, the voice data which is the contents of the voice mail is recorded in the HD 411. This is because the time slot containing the voice data at the start of voice recognition is the voice recognition unit 40.
5 is executed at the same time when it is connected to the HD 411. The recording of the voice mail, the voice recognition, and the analysis of the caller are executed in steps S50 to S70 by the same procedure as in the above-mentioned embodiment. That is, the voice recognition unit 10
The character data that is the output result of 5 is sent to CC406,
The CC 406 analyzes this character data based on the keyword stored in the memory 407.

When the sender of the voice mail is determined by such an analysis, the process proceeds to step S180 where the extension terminal which is the destination of the voice mail, for example, MF.
The message is transmitted to T408 or PC409. In response to this, the display of the MFT 408 or the PC 409 displays the sender name of the voice mail to notify that the voice mail has arrived. On the other hand, if the destination of the voice mail cannot be specified due to an operation error or the like, either a message for all terminals under the PBX 401 is displayed so that all extension terminals display the arrival of the voice mail, or the voice mail is sent to the PC 410. Display incoming calls.

Generally, the display area of the display of the MFT 408 is small, and the amount of information that can be displayed is small, so the browseability is not so high. However, if a PC is used as an extension terminal, the display area of the display is usually MFT 408.
Since it can display a large amount of information in comparison with that of, it is optimal for displaying multiple voice mails. Therefore, according to the present embodiment, in the PBX that controls a plurality of terminals, when the terminal of the communication partner is busy or there is no response when calling, or when the agent performs the voice mail recording operation. Recognizes voice mail, generates character data, analyzes the character data based on pre-stored keywords, and identifies who is the sender of the voice mail. Since the information thus transmitted is transmitted to the corresponding terminal, the recipient of the voice mail can know who is the sender without listening to the contents of the voice mail.

As described above, voice recognition and caller analysis are performed by the PB.
By concentrating on X, it is not necessary to equip each telephone with a voice recognition function as compared with the case where the telephone described in the above embodiment is provided with a voice recognition unit, and the total system construction cost is suppressed. There is an advantage that you can. Note that the PBX of this embodiment is configured to have a PC interface, and indicates that an incoming voice mail has been received by the MFT or PC.
However, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, when using a small-capacity PBX that does not have a PC interface, each individual MFT may display a message indicating that a voice mail has arrived, or information on many voice mails may be displayed to display information. The device may be configured to use a PC connected to the CC as a common display terminal in order to ensure high readability. In this case, it is controlled to display the incoming voice mail on the PC connected to the CC, regardless of the destination of the voice mail.

Alternatively, one extension terminal under the PBX can be assigned as a dedicated terminal for displaying information regarding voice mails of a plurality of destinations. In this case, the correspondence data of the voice mail destination and its display terminal is stored in the memory in the PBX, and when the CC can determine the voice mail destination, the correspondence data stored in the memory is referred to, It is sufficient to notify the dedicated terminal of the incoming voice mail. At that time, if the addressee is also displayed, the display can be more easily understood.

The present invention is not limited to the internal structure of the PBX described in this embodiment. For example, instead of performing the caller analysis using the keyword in CC 406, all the functions thereof are built in the voice recognition unit 103, and the voice recognition unit 103 stores the voice pattern information of the caller stored in advance and the voice of the recognition target. It is also possible to configure the device so as to identify the sender of the voice mail by collating with. This has the advantage that the processing load on the CC 406 is reduced and normal exchange control is performed without delay.

Further, in the above-mentioned embodiment, the voice data is RA.
The configuration recorded in M105 may be a configuration in which a hard disk as in this embodiment is provided and stored in the hard disk in consideration of the audio data amount, semiconductor cost, access speed to the data, and the like. The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices.
It may be applied to an apparatus composed of one device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the case where it is achieved by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus.

[0039]

As described above, according to the present invention, a keyword for identifying the sender of a voice mail is stored by being used by being incorporated in a telephone or an exchange that is directly connected to a communication line. , The received voice mail is voice-recognized, converted into character data, the character data is analyzed based on the stored keyword, the sender of the voice mail is specified, and information about the specified caller is displayed. Alternatively, since it is transferred to the terminal device controlled by the exchange, there is an effect that the content can be predicted without hearing the content of the voice mail from the displayed or transferred information about the specific caller. As a result, it is possible to select and listen only to voice mails that are really necessary without listening to unnecessary voice mails.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a telephone 100 having a built-in voice mail function, which is a typical embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a flowchart showing a voice mail recognition process of the telephone 100. FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a table of keywords used for analyzing character data output by a voice recognition unit 103.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a display example of voice mail information displayed on a display device 110.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a PBX 401 according to another embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a voice mail recognition process of the PBX 401.

[Explanation of symbols]

 100 telephone set 101 external line interface 102 voice circuit 103 voice recognition unit 104 CPU 105 RAM 106 ROM 107 speaker 108 microphone 109 keyboard 110 display unit 401 PBX 402 memory time switch (MTS) 403 MFT interface 404 PC interface 406 CC (main control unit) 407 Memory 408 MFT (multi-function phone) 409, 410 PC (personal computer) 411 HD (hard disk)

Continuation of front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Office reference number FI Technical indication location H04M 3/50 H04M 3/50 B H04Q 3/58 101 H04Q 3/58 101

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. A voice mail device which is built in a telephone directly connected to a communication line and records and reproduces voice data received from the communication line as voice mail, and a receiving means for receiving the voice mail. First storage means for storing the received voice mail, second storage means for storing a keyword for identifying a sender of the voice mail from the voice mail, and voice recognition of the voice mail to convert it into character data. Voice recognition means, based on the keywords stored in the second storage means,
A voice mail apparatus comprising: an analyzing unit that analyzes the character data and identifies a sender of the voice mail; and a display unit that displays information about the specified sender. 2. The second storage means can store a plurality of keywords for identifying the sender of the voice mail, and one or more pronunciations are associated with each of the plurality of keywords. The voice mail device according to claim 1, wherein the voice mail device is provided. 3. The voice mail apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the voice recognition means converts the voice mail into character data of kana based on pronunciation of the voice mail and interruption of pronunciation. . 4. The display means displays all information that is possible as the sender when the analysis means cannot identify the sender of the voice mail from the character data. The voice mail device described in 1. 5. A voice mail device which is built in an exchange directly connected to a communication line and records and reproduces voice data received from the communication line as voice mail, and a receiving means for receiving the voice mail. First storage means for storing the received voice mail, second storage means for storing a keyword for identifying a sender of the voice mail from the voice mail, and voice recognition of the voice mail to convert it into character data. Voice recognition means, based on the keywords stored in the second storage means,
A voice having an analysis unit that analyzes the character data and specifies a sender of the voice mail, and a transfer unit that transfers information about the specified sender to a terminal device controlled by the exchange. Mail device. 6. The second storage means is capable of storing a plurality of keywords for identifying a sender of the voice mail, and one or more pronunciations are associated with each of the plurality of keywords. The voice mail device according to claim 5, wherein the voice mail device is provided. 7. The voice mail apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the voice recognition means converts the voice mail into character data of kana based on pronunciation of the voice mail and interruption of pronunciation. . 8. The transfer means transfers all information that may be the sender when the analysis means cannot identify the sender of the voice mail from the character data. The voice mail device according to item 5. 9. The voice mail device according to claim 5, wherein the terminal device includes a telephone and a computer.