NO. 4 ESS: mass announcement capability

We describe the mass announcement capability that has been introduced in No. 4 ESS beginning with the 4E5 generic. This capability allows various sponsors to provide services in which a large volume of callers can dial advertised numbers to listen to Public Announcement Service announcements, register their opinions via telephone calls, or participate in call-ins whereby randomly selected callers are connected to a celebrity for a live answer. Although these kinds of services are not new, they have usually been offered on a limited, individually engineered basis at high administrative cost to the telephone network. Mass announcement capability provides a general means to accommodate sponsor-provided announcement-related services which can be offered on a local, regional, or national basis.