Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Programming control
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-01
2004-08-17
Banks-Harold, Marsha D. (Department: 2686)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Programming control
C455S414100, C455S507000, C379S015030, C379S201030, C379S201120
Reexamination Certificate
active
06778821
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The inventive concepts relate to resale of communication services, particularly pertaining to provisioning techniques for reselling such services.
DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART
Telecommunication services are offered to customers by companies that may not actually own and operate a single telecommunications network. This is performed by reselling telecommunication services provided by established telecommunications companies. However, reselling telecommunication services is not an easy task as it involves coordinating and integrating information from various telecommunications companies into the reseller's business systems.
Reselling telecommunication services, particularly reselling cellular communication services, is administratively complex. Resellers of cellular communication services often desire to offer their customers cellular service throughout an expansive geographic area. However, the companies that physically provide cellular communication services (carriers) have geographically limited areas in which they can provide cellular communication services. For this reason, resellers of cellular communication services require a multitude of arrangements with different carriers in order to offer their customers cellular service throughout an expansive geographic area. An arrangement between a carrier and a reseller typically involves the carrier assigning a range of cellular telephone numbers, from the pool of numbers available through the carrier's network, for the reseller to administer for the reseller's customers. The carrier may also provide the reseller with some form of data-link access to the carrier's provisioning system. so that the reseller can activate telephone numbers and provision features for telephone numbers on behalf of the reseller's customers.
Each carrier that a reseller makes an arrangement with offers general service activation and a variety of features for its cellular communication services that a reseller can offer to its customers. Often, the particular features available for cellular communication services vary from carrier to carrier. Also, each carrier has its own independent provisioning system, and sometimes more than one unique system, for activating service and provisioning features for its cellular communication services. Because a reseller typically makes arrangements with multiple carriers, a reseller must know the required data for, and how to operate, a multitude of provisioning systems, as well as variations due to differences in available features. Administratively, this is a complex problem that resellers face.
Representatives for a carrier are required to fluently know how to operate the carrier's provisioning system so that customers receive fast, accurate and reliable service. Each provisioning system is designed to operate with a specific carrier's cellular network and has a unique set of parameters that it requires, to perform activation and provisioning of features for a mobile telephone number. The required parameters vary depending upon what action the provisioning system is performing. For example, the required parameters for activation might include a customer's name, address, billing information, and mobile identification number for the customer's cellular telephone, while provisioning a feature such as call waiting might require only the mobile identification number for a customer's cellular telephone and the customer's account number. Often a carrier has multiple networks, each with its own provisioning system. Typically a carrier handles multiple cellular networks and multiple provisioning systems by training some representatives to operate one of the provisioning systems and other representatives to operate other provisioning systems.
Representatives for a reseller of cellular communication services are also required to fluently know how to operate provisioning systems so that the reseller's customers receive fast, accurate and reliable service. However, a reseller does not operate two or three provisioning systems. A reseller may be required to interface with fifteen or more provisioning systems, depending upon how many carriers the reseller has arrangements with and how many distinct provisioning systems each carrier operates. Each provisioning system is accessed through a separate computer application and requires unique information and knowledge for operation. This means that a reseller must have representatives capable of operating each provisioning system, and training courses established to train representatives on each of the provisioning systems. A typical representative can learn how to fluently operate at most two or three provisioning systems because operation of a provisioning system requires a representative to learn a new computer application and the unique information that application requires. Establishing training courses, training representatives, providing support for multiple computer applications, and the number of representatives required to operate all of the provisioning systems that a reseller must operate is costly.
Another significant problem for resellers is that there is too much information relating to activating and provisioning telephone numbers on all of the different carriers' provisioning systems for a reseller to establish a single service center. Reseller representatives must identify each incoming call relating to a provisioning operation with a particular carrier. Often, this is done by having representatives memorize ranges of telephone numbers that belong to each carrier the reseller has arrangements with.
This task is easier for representatives if at least some of the possible carriers are eliminated by having different service centers that serve different service regions. For example, a reseller offering cellular services throughout the United States might have a service center in the North East, one in the South, one located in the Midwest, and one on the West Coast.
Separate service centers are also needed because of the equipment required to operate all of the different provisioning systems. Within a service center different workstations are configured with different applications that operate unique provisioning systems. For example, one representative's workstation might run two applications, one for each of the provisioning systems that the representative is trained to operate, while the workstation for the representative next to him could run three completely different applications, one for each provisioning system that she is trained to operate. This results in various workstation configurations and different networks within a single service center that are necessary to physically communicate with and operate the multiple applications for provisioning systems to which the service center interfaces. From a technical standpoint, resellers must limit the variation of workstation configurations and networks within a service center in order to maintain and administer the computer resources for a service center.
Yet another problem is lack of synergy between reseller representatives' job duties. Because of the complex nature of provisioning systems and the separate computer applications required to operate each provisioning system, each reseller representative knows how to operate only a few different applications for a few provisioning systems. This means that a limited number of reseller representatives know how to operate the application for a provisioning system for each particular carrier. Therefore, reseller representatives cannot be transferred from one service center to another because the applications for provisioning systems are different in each service center. It also means that if only a handful of representatives were to become ill, or quit, or otherwise become-indisposed, the reseller could be left without any employees that know how to operate one, or.several of the applications for provisioning systems in a service center.
A configuration for a reseller's s
Banks-Harold Marsha D.
Cellco Partnership
Perez-Gutierrez Rafael
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