Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system
Reexamination Certificate
2001-05-23
2004-09-21
Trost, William (Department: 2683)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Zoned or cellular telephone system
C455S456100, C455S423000, C455S067110, C455S457000, C455S445000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06795707
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to telecommunications, and in particular to correlating telecommunications infrastructures with infrastructure usage.
2. Description of the Related Art
Service providers, such as cellular phone service providers, may be licensed to provide service within specific areas. The service providers install or lease telecommunications infrastructure, such as cellular antennas, within the licensed service areas. The location and density of the infrastructure can be critical in determining the quality of service that the provider has in a given area. Disadvantageously, service users do not have adequate access to or an understanding of such infrastructure information and so cannot adequately evaluate the telecommunications service provider's quality of service. Thus, users contract for telecommunications services before knowing the level of service that they will be receiving. Only after contracting for and utilizing the telecommunication service, can the user determine whether the service provider's telecommunication infrastructure, and hence service, meets the user's needs.
Other problems exist in providing appropriate services. Many industries, such as the telecommunications industry and the energy industry, have undergone extensive deregulation. While deregulation should theoretically lower costs to consumers, for many services, such as electricity, retail customers lack the information and tools needed to make informed pricing and service decisions. Thus, many customers have not taken advantage of deregulation, depriving them of cost savings and/or improved service.
Similarly, providers, such as electricity or telecommunications providers, have not had a cost effective method of identifying and targeting desirable customers. Thus, service providers have not been able to effectively compete with a customer's existing or incumbent provider, and so have been deprived of meaningful opportunities to enter new markets and acquire new customers.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is related to methods and systems for correlating user needs with providers' goods and services, such as offered by utility and telecommunications providers. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a distributed information system provides users, service providers, and distributors with sufficient information to enable them to make informed decisions before entering into contractual relationships.
Advantageously, the distributed information system provides consumers with substantially real-time information at the point of sale, ensuring that a consumer's requirements or preferences are correlated with the services and/or products being acquired.
One embodiment of the present invention provides utility suppliers with information related to consumers of utility services or products, such as electricity, gas, water, telecommunication services (including, but not limited to wireless services, cellular services, paging services, and wired phone services), cable, broadband services (including, but not limited to ADSL, DSL, T1, satellite, and cable services), heating oil, and other related products and services. Based on the consumer information, one or more suppliers may generate offers to provide the products and services to consumers, which are then provided to the consumers. More generally, one embodiment of the present invention may be used to facilitate deals between suppliers and purchasers of products and services, where the price of the products or services are based at least in part on a given customer's characteristics or preferences. These customer characteristics may relate to, by way of example, the customer usage of a product or service, such as customer's usage amount, usage location, and time of usage, and/or to financial characteristics, including credit worthiness, payment history, assets, debt, and related characteristics. Such products and services may include leases, mortgages, insurance, investment instruments, and the like.
Advantageously, one embodiment of the present invention acts as a neutral market maker for services, such as utility services, allowing consumers and utility providers to be better and more efficiently matched. A plurality of consumer profiles are generated, and based on these profiles a supplier may select an individual consumer and/or define a subset of consumers and bid to supply service or services to the individual consumer or that consumer subset.
In one embodiment, consumers' identities are not revealed to suppliers during the bidding process to thereby protect consumers' privacy. In addition, the identity of suppliers may likewise not be revealed to consumers, to keep suppliers' bidding strategies and pricing structure secret.
In still another embodiment, information from the consumer may be collected via a terminal located at a conventional, physical, “bricks and mortar” store. Thus, as similarly described above, consumer data, including preferences and/or usage data, is collected and based at least in part on the preferences and/or usage information, offers and related information may be generated specifically for the consumer. The information and offers may then be provided to the consumer via the store terminal. For example, the consumer may be presented with a list of products and/or services ranked based upon the consumer data. This advantageously allows the store to customize and selectively offer to consumers both products and related services. Based on the ranked list, the consumer can quickly locate and order the most suitable products and/or services. In addition, the store can optionally provide the product and/or activate the related services before the consumer leaves the store.
In one embodiment, a quality of service application helps users select the service provider that offers the most suitable service. For example, one such quality of service (QOS) application aids users select the telecommunications service provider with the most suitable telecommunications infrastructure, including the most suitable placement and density of antennas for the users needs. The customer is asked by the QOS application for information related to the user's present or anticipated service and/or product utilization patterns. For example, with respect to cellular service, the customer is presented with a service area usage form, wherein the customer specifies where the customer intends to use a cellular phone or other similar telecommunications device. The form may be displayed on a touch sensitive terminal installed in a retail site or on a conventional end-user terminal in the user's home or business. The form, by way of example, can include a map of an area of interest.
Major cellular service areas are indicated on the map. Optionally, the name of a city or town located within or adjacent to a given service area may be displayed in conjunction with the service area indicator. The user is asked to select which service areas the customer intends to typically use their cellular phone in. The selected circles are highlighted, filed in, or otherwise emphasized. The user can then submit or verify the selection.
Next, a more detailed map of a first of the selected service areas, and optionally, adjacent areas, is presented. The map may show, for example, the local cities and towns within or adjacent to the selected circled area. With finer granularity, the user can select in which of these local areas the user intends to use the cellular phone in. The selected areas are highlighted, filed in, or otherwise emphasized. The user can then submit or verify the selection or selections.
Once the user selects the local areas of interest, the user can indicate which routes the user typically travels on. The displayed routes can include major and secondary highways, as well as streets, subways, trains, ferries, and other routes. The user can then select or indicate which routes the user typically uses. Th
Derby Paul
Hawkins Campbell
Martin Jeffrey W.
Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP
Rampuria Sharad
Trost William
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