PHONE SILENCE SYSTEM

摘要

A telephone answering system having a phone silence actuator (280) for silencing a telephone ringer. The phone silence actuator, in response to an incoming call, may silence the telephone ringer or it may activate a telephone answering machine to answer the phone. The phone silence actuator has a user input that may be activated by a user in response to the incoming call. The user input may be at least one of a push-button input and a voice input. The voice input may detect any user voice input or it may discriminate between different user commands to produce one of the desired responses.