Over the air user zone assignment for wireless telephony systems

In a wireless communication system including a network controller providing communication services to a plurality of mobile user terminals, a method of defining user-selected user zones associated with each of said user terminals comprising the steps of:

• locating a user terminal within said wireless communication system;
• referencing a plurality of vectors from said user terminal location, each of said vectors providing a distance and angle measurement referenced from a predetermined direction from the location of the user terminal;
• transmitting said vector information to said network controller;
• and
• generating at the network controller, a user zone associated with said user terminal as a function of said vector information by connecting each end point defined by each of said vectors to form said user zone, said user zone defining a geographic region wherein said user terminal can request communication services of said communication system without incurring out-of-network fees.

In a wireless communication system including a network controller providing communication services to a plurality of mobile user terminals, a method of defining user-selected user zones associated with each of said user terminals comprising the steps of:

• locating a user terminal within said wireless communication system;
• referencing a vector representing a radius (r) from said user terminal location;
• transmitting said vector information to said network controller;
• and
• generating at the network controller, a user zone associated with said user terminal as a function of said vector information by defining a circle about said user terminal of radius r to form said user zone, said user zone defining a geographic region wherein said user terminal can request communication services of said communication system without incurring out-of-network fees.

In a geographic region serviced by at least two wireless communication service providers, each of said service providers having a wireless communication system including a network controller providing communication services to a plurality of mobile user terminals, a method of requesting communication services by a user within a user-defined user zone comprising the steps of:

• locating a user terminal within said geographic region serviced by at least two wireless communication service providers;
• referencing at least one user-selected vector representing a radius from said user terminal location;
• transmitting from said user terminal, said vector data to said wireless communication service providers;
• and
• receiving from at least one of said wireless communication service providers a quote for services within said user-defined a user zone comprising a geographic region defined substantially as a circle of said radius.