Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Usage measurement
Reexamination Certificate
1997-09-23
2001-09-18
Cumming, William (Department: 2681)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Usage measurement
C370S524000, C379S155000, C455S433000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06292656
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
The following application of common assignee contains some disclosure, and is believed to have an effective filing date identical with that of the present application.
A WIRELESS PREPAID PLATFORM INTEGRATION WITH STANDARD SIGNALING, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/935,821, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to telecommunications network products and, more particularly, to a network and method for processing wireless prepaid telephone calls.
2. Related Art
Telecommunications network products are services provided by telephone companies that are carried on telecommunications networks. A widely known example is dial-1 long-distance voice service which allows a customer to dial a 1 plus a ten digit number from his or her home telephone, talk to a party who answers the telephone on the line of the ten digit number dialed, and pay for the telephone call when billed at the end of the month. Although dial-1 is popular, other calling and payment options are sometimes preferable, such as the option to make a call from a phone other than the home phone and charge the call to the home phone account using a calling card.
One such calling and payment option is debit calling which is also referred to as prepaid calling. Debit calling allows a customer to put funds in an account and have those funds debited each time a telephone call is made. Standard debit call processing includes verification of the account balance prior to connecting the call and ongoing balance verification during the call. An example of a typical debit calling customer is a parent who purchases a debit calling card for a child away from home.
As previously mentioned, debit calling is carried on a telecommunications network. A telecommunications network comprises two basic elements: telecommunications equipment, which may also be referred to as network components, and links which connect the equipment or components. In a common channel signaling telecommunications network, two types of links connect components, signaling links and traffic links (also known as telephone lines). Signaling links carry signaling information needed to process a call between network components. Traffic links or telephone lines carry information a customer is sending, for example a digitalized signal of a person's voice, between network components. Components of the telecommunications network, specifically switches, establish a traffic link to carry a call by exchanging messages via signaling links. Signaling messages specify tasks to be performed on the traffic links.
Because call handling and information processing for debit calling differs from other voice services, debit calls are handled by specialized components in the telecommunications network. Difficulties arise in setting up calls through network components that are not specialized for handling prepaid calls. These components may handle primarily dial-1 calls or be specialized for another service such as wireless voice service. A particular problem addressed by the present invention is incorporating prepaid calls into a network specialized in handling wireless calls.
The most common approach in incorporating debit calling into a wireless network is to require a specialized wireless handset to force calls through to the network components that can handle the debit calls. Another approach is to require a customer to dial an access number to access the appropriate network components for debit calling. Yet another approach is to limit the services available to a debit caller, for example, some wireless debit services allow customers to make debit calls but do not allow customers to receive debit calls via the wireless network.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Briefly stated, the present invention offers wireless prepaid calling without the use of a special wireless handset or access number. In addition, the present invention allows a customer to place and receive calls via the wireless network. Also, the present invention offers the specialized call processing for wireless debit calls while complying with the industry signaling standards.
More particularly, the present invention is directed to a wireless prepaid platform using a signaling technique. The signaling technique involves defining special parameters, referred to as prepaid call parameters and a prepaid routing number that handle the specialized call processing and route the calls to the specialized network components needed for debit call processing. In the signaling technique, the prepaid call parameters and prepaid routing number are encapsulated in the call set-up signaling information. In other words, prepaid call parameters and prepaid routing number are stored in fields in the signaling messaging used for call set-up that are not specified by the industry standard signaling method.
The telecommunications industry has developed a standard signaling method which allows telephone companies to communicate over the networks of other companies. The equipment in a telecommunications network complies to the standard so it can receive and respond to signaling messages from other equipment. The current industry standard is American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Signaling System Number 7 (SS7) Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) User Part (ISUP) NCT1.113 (1995) document and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Signaling System Number 7(SS7) Message Transfer Part (MTP) NCT 1.111 (1992) document, which are incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The present invention uses fields in the ANSI SS7 ISUP standard signaling messaging that sets up a call. The signaling messaging used for call set-up is referred to as the initial address message. The present invention places or encapsulates the prepaid call parameters within the super generic digits field of the initial address message. Encapsulation is discussed in further detail in U.S. Pat. No. 5,889,782 entitled, “Encapsulation of Proprietary Protocol Information” incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The prepaid routing number is stored in the called party number field, another field in the initial address message. Although the present invention redefines fields in the standard signaling message, it has the same signaling format and complies with the standard.
Use of the signaling technique alleviates the need for a special wireless handset or access number to direct the call to the appropriate network components. Also, services are not limited, for example, a prepaid subscriber may both make and receive a call.
Further features and advantages of the invention, as well as the structure and operation of various embodiments of the invention, are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the corresponding reference number.
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Joneleit, P. “Signalin
Chou Gou-Fuh George
Devanathan Raghavan
Donovan Steven
Gallant John Kenneth
Cumming William
MCI Communications Corporation
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