Telephonic communications – With usage measurement – Call charge metering or monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-12
2002-06-25
Woo, Stella (Department: 2643)
Telephonic communications
With usage measurement
Call charge metering or monitoring
C379S142010
Reexamination Certificate
active
06411692
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
For many years the telephone system in general has known certain information about the phone from which a call has been made. For example, the telephone system has known what area code the call was placed from, the long distance carrier of the phone call, and even the approximate geographic location for a non-mobile phone based on the first six digits of the caller's number, based on the Local Exchange Routing Guide of Bellcore (LERG), at which the phone call was made, if it was a residential or non-mobile phone. However, in reality, the extent of information that has been able to be collected about a calling party by the telephone system is quite low. For example, consider a home in which two or more people reside. If a call is placed from that home there is no way of knowing, as the call is handled by the telephone system, who is making the call. The only thing the telephone system may know is the approximate geographic location of a non-mobile phone and the calling number. The call may even have been placed by a visitor to the home.
The examples of lack of knowledge about the calling party quickly expand when one considers phone calls originating from institutions (for example, hotels, hospitals, airports, offices, prisons, universities, etc.). Then consider mobile phones (Personal Communication System (PCS)/Service), air phones, maritime phones, and cellular phones, and it soon becomes apparent how little information is really known about a calling party. A public phone (such as a pay phone) in a lobby of an institution, provides little if any information about the calling party especially if the calling party is paying cash for the call.
Businesses have attempted to learn more about a calling party by asking questions of the calling party when their call is received. For example, a rental car company receives a call from a person wanting to rent a car. A live attendant for the rental car company will collect information about the caller by asking several questions. Consider that the caller is likely to have rented a car previously from the same company. There should be no need to have to re-ask all of the same questions every time the same caller wants to rent a car. Also consider the situation when the caller who is calling to rent a car, during the same call, requests information that is not known by the first attendant and the first attendant must transfer the call to another attendant such as a supervisor. Frequently in such situations it is necessary for the caller or the first attendant to have to repeat all or much of the caller's basic information to the second attendant. This unfortunate waste of time and resources goes on every day in calls occurring all over the world. The present invention provides a solution to this and related problems of telecommunications.
The telephone system has evolved to include limited standard identification information about the calling phone (calling number and/or ANI) and the phone that was called (dialed number). This information is primarily obtained from the telephone number from which the phone call was placed and the telephone number that was dialed by the caller. The telephone system has recognized these two numbers as basic information sources (for routing calls and for billing purposes for example) and has developed a system of standards for the data character fields these numbers are to fill. The following background information will better explain these standards of limited phone identification used today by the telephone system of the United States and as it applies to the international standards as well.
Automatic Number Identification
Automatic Number Identification (ANI) is a basic element of telephone calls transported throughout the public and private telephone networks. For the North America Numbering Plan (NANP), it is currently 10 digits long. ANI is used extensively for:
call routing
call billing
call tracking
call identification.
Call Routing Based on ANI
Area Code Routing based on the calling phone number is a common feature found in most long distance telephone networks. Based on the calling party number (ANI) the call can be routed and/or receive special treatment by telephone switches, the phone network, and equipment. Some Interexchange Carriers (IXC's) (such as AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc.) and Local Exchange Companies (LEC's) (such as Ameritech) provide many enhanced forms of call routing usually based on the first 3 or more ANI digit screening:
Call routing based on the first 3 ANI digits is usually referred to as Area Code Routing. For example, if the calling number ANI was 614-847-6161, then Area Code Routing would consider the “614” part of the ANI and route the Ohio originated call using the “614” as the broad geographic data element to start the routing routines and calculations, based on the routing rules and other factors (agents available, busies, lines available, time of day, day of week, percent allocation, and other factors).
Call Routing based on more than the first 3 ANI digits allows for more geographic precision. Most ANI's have a geographic relationship. Bell Core publishes a LERG (Local Exchange Routing Guide) that gives the approximate longitude and latitude for the area code/exchange (as well as other data contained in the LERG) represented by the first 6 digits of the ANI. For example, for the calling number 614-847-6161 the “614-847” component has the geographic representation of Ohio and the metropolitan area of North Columbus/Worthington. The Area-Code-Exchange (NPA-NXX) Routing ability gives even greater routing definition for the calling party (ANI). If a caller to an 800 number with an ANI of “614-847-6161” was in need of being connected to a towing service, then the geographically closest towing service might be identified to handle the towing job (at a shorter travel time and possible lower cost).
Call Routing can be based on the first 6 ANI digits or more. In fact, call routing can be extended to the first 7, 8, 9, or 10 digits to even focus on a single calling telephone number. For example, calls originating from “614-847-6161” could be assigned to a specific travel department within a company. The caller with that ANI could be routed by the telephone network to a certain group that always handles that travel department when that caller dials the local, 800, 500, or other number of a travel agency which routes calls using ANI. In this case, a specific ANI or set of ANI's is given a defined routing algorithm, or treatment, when recognized by a controlling network to route the call based on ANI or a group of ANI's.
Call Billing (Line ANI and Billing ANI)
ANI (as a term) is used, quite often interchangeably, for both the call originating billing number and/or the line number for the originating end of a call. For a location that has only one telephone line and one number (such as a residence with only one line), ANI usually refers to both the calling line and the billing number.
For a multi-line location (such as a business or residence with 2 or more lines), a PBX (Private Branch Exchange, a location's switch), or Centrex (where the local telephone company's switch or a separate switch acts as a PBX), the billing number or the lead number may be presented by the public telephone network as the ANI for the actual line used to place the call. For example, for a multi-line location such as a business, the public telephone network may present all the out-bound calls with the same ANI as the billing ANI even though multiple lines are in use, each with their own assigned line ANI and most of which are different than the billing ANI. The billing ANI is usually a good geographic representation of the non-mobile caller and usually represents the responsible (billing) party for the call (or one of them). However, in some cases, the billing ANI may not represent the actual ANI (or line number) of the call. In other cases, the billing ANI may not be presented and the line number ANI is presented instead. In any case, t
Barnie Rexford N
Convergys CMG Utah Inc.
Frost Brown Todd LLC
Woo Stella
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