US Patent 7620160 Announcing presence information during telephone call ringback

A method and system for outputting a call announcement based on presence information of a callee as a ringback tone is provided. The announcement system is provided with presence information of users. When the telephone system receives an indication of an incoming call from a caller, the telephone system identifies the callee. After the callee is identified, the announcement system retrieves the presence information for the callee and generates an announcement based on that presence information.