Telephonic communications – Diagnostic testing – malfunction indication – or electrical... – Of centralized switching system
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-18
2001-08-07
Kuntz, Curtis (Department: 2643)
Telephonic communications
Diagnostic testing, malfunction indication, or electrical...
Of centralized switching system
C379S010030, C379S013000, C379S207030
Reexamination Certificate
active
06272208
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates generally to telecommunications and more particularly to automatically verifying provisioning of telecommunications services.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Consumers of telecommunications services are constantly demanding new and more advanced services to facilitate their personal communications. Examples of such services include call forwarding, personal 1-800 service, roaming services, and caller ID. Advanced telecommunications systems often include a service control point that contains a database. The database may be used in conjunction with many of the advanced services demanded by telephone users. For example, a service switching point (SSP) may transmit a dialed 1-800 number to a service control point to receive the actual routing number associated with the dialed 1-800 number. The actual routing number may vary, depending upon, for example, the time the dialed 1-800 number call was placed or the originating location of the dialed 1-800 number. A database in the service control point is accessed with the dialed 1-800 number, and information associated with that 1-800 number and an appropriate routing number is selected from the database for transmission back to the service switching point.
A customer of a telecommunications system such as, for example, MCI, Sprint, AT&T, or GTE, may place customer information into the database by accessing the service control point. Examples of placing information into the database in the service control point include adding subscriber names and information associated with the subscriber and updating current entries to reflect changes in data associated with a subscriber. The placing or modifying of information contained within a database in the service control point is commonly referred to as database provisioning.
Database provisioning is required both when new services are made available to a subscriber and when subscriber information is changed. New services are created in a service creation environment by, for example, the designer and operator of a telecommunications system, such as, for example, DSC Communications Incorporated. The new services are created in the service creation environment and the database in the service control point is modified to reflect the new services.
Consumers of telecommunications services are constantly demanding new and more advanced services to facilitate their personal communications. Examples of such services include call forwarding, personal 1-800 service, roaming services, and caller ID. Advanced telecommunications systems often include a service control point that contains a database. The database may be used in conjunction with many of the advanced services demanded by telephone users. For example, a service switching point (SSP) may transmit a dialed 1-800 number to a service control point to receive the actual routing number associated with the dialed 1-800 number. The actual routing number may vary, depending upon, for example, the time the dialed 1-800 number call was placed or the originating location of the dialed 1-800 number. A database in the service control point is accessed with the dialed 1-800 number, and information associated with that 1-800 number and an appropriate routing number is selected from the database for transmission back to the service switching point.
A customer of a telecommunications system such as, for example, MCI, Sprint, AT&T, or GTE, may place customer information into the database by accessing the service control point. Examples of placing information into the database in the service control point include adding subscriber names and information associated with the subscriber and updating current entries to reflect changes in data associated with a subscriber. The placing or modifying of information contained within a database in the service control point is commonly referred to as database provisioning.
Database provisioning is required both when new services are made available to a subscriber and when subscriber information is changed. New services are created in a service creation environment by, for example, the designer and operator of a telecommunications system, such as, for example, DSC Communications Incorporated. The new services are created in the service creation environment and the database in the service control point is modified to reflect the new services.
Conventional methods for testing provisioning of telecommunications services suffer several disadvantages. For example, conventionally when a database is modified to accommodate new telecommunications services, a new protocol for communication between a user and the modified database is required for provisioning of that database. Because a new protocol is required each time a database is modified to accommodate new telecommunications services, determining whether a database has been properly provisioned is difficult. For example, to determine whether a database has been properly provisioned, it may be necessary to determine expected responses to test messages sent to the database. Because the protocol is modified each time the database is modified, determining the expected responses can be difficult and time consuming, particularly when a large number of test messages and responses are required to completely test provisioning of a telecommunications service.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
From the foregoing it may be appreciated that a need has arisen for automatically verifying provisioning of telecommunications services that addresses the disadvantages of prior systems and methods.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method for automatically verifying provision of a telephony database includes receiving from the telephony database a first table structure for a first table within the telephony database. The method also includes automatically generating, based on the first table structure, a test provisioning message operable to provision a table having the first table structure. The method also includes automatically generating an expected response to the test provisioning message and transmitting the test provisioning message. The method also includes receiving an actual response to the test provisioning message and comparing the actual response to the expected response. The method further includes generating a result based on comparing the actual response to the expected response.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a system for verifying provisioning of telecommunications services includes a first telecommunications node that includes an automatic testing unit and an automatic verification unit. The automatic testing unit is operable to transmit test messages to a provisioning unit for confirming provisioning of a database associated with telephony services and is also operable to receive actual responses to the test messages. The automatic testing unit is also operable to compare the actual responses to the expected responses and generate a result based on the comparison on the actual responses to the expected responses. The automatic verification unit is operable to receive a table structure for the database and automatically generate a plurality of test messages and expected responses based on the table structure for transmission to the automatic testing unit. The system also includes a second telecommunications node that includes the database.
The invention provides several technical advantages. For example, the invention allows a rapid method for testing provisioning of telecommunications services. Once a database has been provisioned, it may be quickly tested without having to generate format-specific test messages and expected responses. The avoidance of generating such format-specific test messages and expected responses reduces the cost of implementing telecommunications services and time delay associated with bringing new telecommunications services to market.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5572570 (1996-11-01), Kuenzig
patent: 5633909 (1997-05-01), Fitch
patent: 5878113 (1999-03-01), Bhusri
patent:
Alcatel USA Sourcing L.P.
Baker & Botts L.L.P.
Kuntz Curtis
Tieu Binh K.
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