Telephone device provisioning pre-order entry system

Details Telephone device provisioning pre-order entry system Telephone device provisioning pre-order entry system

1998-08-24

2001-10-16

Tsang, Fan (Department: 2645)

Telephonic communications

Special services

Provisioning

C379S201040, C379S247000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06304647

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a pre-ordering system for provisioning of telephone service.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
When telephone service is to be established for a new telephone number, several pre-ordering functions must be performed to setup an order to provision the service. The address at which the service is to be established must be validated, to ensure that provisioning is not attempted at an incorrect or non-existent address. A telephone number must be assigned to the service, and a long distance primary interexchange carrier (PIC) must be assigned to the telephone number. Where the new service is being established by an existing customer, such as when the customer moves from one location to another, that customer's migrated service records must be transferred to the new service. The features of the new service must be selected. The connections and facilities available at the new address must be determined in order to determine the work that is necessary to establish the service. Finally, the date of the installation of the service must be selected.
In the past, these functions had to be performed largely separately and often manually, resulting in delay and inefficiency. A need arises for a solution by which all of these functions may be performed together in an automated manner.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is a pre-order entry system for provisioning of telephone service. The pre-ordering functions of address validation, long distance PIC assignment, telephone number assignment, customer service records transfer, features selection, facility information determination and installation date selection are performed in an integrated and automated manner.
In order to perform telephone service provisioning pre-order entry, customer information including an address is received. An address validation screen, including a field requesting an address, is displayed. The customer information, including the address, is entered into the address validation screen and the address is validated. A list of available long distance primary interexchange carriers is displayed and a carrier is selected from the list. Telephone number assignments are then requested. This is then followed by a feature selection screen including a list of telephone service features that are both available for provisioning and are being offered. A telephone service feature is selected from the displayed list. A dispatch information screen including information relating to telephone service facilities that are present at the validated address is displayed and facilities that are required for installation of telephone service at the validated address are determined. An installation date selection screen including available installation dates is displayed and an installation date is selected from among the available installation dates. An order including the entered information is accepted or rejected and a record of the order is output.
In one aspect of the present invention, a telephone number reservation screen is displayed, responsive to determining that a new telephone number is to be reserved and a new telephone number is assigned to the validated address.
In another aspect of the present invention, a telephone number migration screen is displayed, responsive to determining that a telephone number is to be migrated and the telephone number and associated features are migrated to the validated address.


REFERENCES:
patent: 5644619 (1997-07-01), Farris et al.
patent: 5898765 (1999-04-01), Teglovic et al.
patent: 5953389 (1999-09-01), Pruett et al.
patent: 5956024 (1999-09-01), Strickland et al.
patent: 6031904 (2000-02-01), An et al.
patent: 6104798 (2000-08-01), Lickiss et al.

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