Methods for Providing Overdraft Protection for Post-Paid Communication Service Plans
AssigneeAT&T Mobility II LLC
InventorsCoulter C. Henry, JR., Francis Richard Lazaro, JR., Andrew Lamont Hines, JR., Derek Ukow-Badu Johnson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods for adding minutes to a calling plan having a calling plan period. The methods including determining whether a threshold number of minutes have been reached during the calling plan period; and incrementally adding minutes to the calling plan when the threshold number of minutes has been reached. The cost per minute of the added minutes is less than the high-cost per minute rate normally associated with exceeding the threshold number of minutes during the calling plan period.
Claims20
A method, for providing overdraft protection in connection with a communications account, comprising:
- receiving, at a tangible computer server, a user instruction indicating whether a user associated with the communications account would like to:
- borrow additional data blocks from a future data plan period;
- or
- be charged a predetermined cost per additional data block for additional data blocks,
- the predetermined cost per additional data block being less than a cost per data block normally associated with exceeding a predetermined base number of data blocks during a data plan period for the communications account.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method comprising:
- receiving a user instruction indicating whether a user associated with the communications account would like to:
- borrow additional data blocks from a future data plan period;
- or
- be charged a predetermined cost per additional data block for additional data blocks,
- the predetermined cost per additional data block being less than a cost per data block normally associated with exceeding a predetermined base number of data blocks during a data plan period for the communications account.
A billing system server, for providing overdraft protection to a user, comprising:
- a processor;
- and
- a computer-readable memory comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform a method comprising:
- receiving a user instruction indicating whether a user associated with the communications account would like to:
- borrow additional data blocks from a future data plan period;
- or
- be charged a predetermined cost per additional data block for additional data blocks,
- the predetermined cost per additional data block being less than a cost per data block normally associated with exceeding a predetermined base number of data blocks during a data plan period far the communications account.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.