"For conception and specification of intelligent network services utilizing Common Channel Signaling and centralized databases to route calls for such services as Advanced 800."

Roy Weber invented the "smart" network, and as a result he opened the way for advanced 800 services, telemarketing, call center networks, electronic storefronts, and online customer service centers.

"I had an idea on how to improve some of our services, like 800 services, but I was told that my idea wouldn't work because the network didn't work that way," says Weber. "So I came up with a way to change the network. I was young and didn't know any better."

On the old network, a call made to a certain telephone number was sent to a specific phone with that number. For 800 services, this process was cumbersome because it required companies to maintain a list of different 800 numbers for different states.

Weber's idea was to combine a number of technologies, including computing, database management, signal processing, and digital switching, among others, to give the network greater intelligence and functionality. For example, instead of sending an 800 number to a specific phone, the smart network sends the call to a switch, which momentarily stops the call and sends a signal to a computer. The computer matches the signal to the called company and scans a database of different phones across the country that could handle the call. Based on where the call originated, time, day of the week, or other factors, it sends a signal back to the switch telling it where to send the call.

Much of the technology Weber pioneered is now being transferred to the Internet for the next generation of online commerce and information systems. Weber, along with Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, is a charter member of the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame.

Named an AT&T Fellow in 1996.

Meet Roy Weber
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