Prepaid telephony system and method of activating a prepaid telephony account
AssigneeAT&T Intellectual Property, Inc.
InventorsDonna M. Harrison, Larry B. Pearson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In one particular embodiment, the disclosure is directed to a method of activating a prepaid telephony account. The method includes receiving a call from a caller at a prepaid service destination address identified by a prepaid calling card; receiving a prepaid card number of the caller; receiving a destination number; receiving an origination address of the caller; providing a message to the caller including an offer to associate a prepaid account corresponding to the prepaid calling card with the origination address of the caller; receiving a response to the message from the caller; and associating a long distance service code with the origination address of the caller based on the response to the message.
Claims19
A method of activating a prepaid telephony account, the method comprising:
- receiving a call from a caller at a prepaid service destination address identified by a prepaid calling card;
- receiving a prepaid card number of the caller;
- receiving a destination number;
- receiving an origination address of the caller;
- providing a message to the caller including an offer to associate a prepaid account corresponding to the prepaid calling card with the origination address of the caller;
- receiving a response to the message from the caller;
- and
- associating a long distance service code with the origination address of the caller based on the response to the message.
A prepaid account stored in a computer system, the prepaid account comprising:
- subscriber identity data;
- network address information associated with the subscriber identity data;
- prepaid usage data to identify a number of prepaid usage units available for use of a telephony service, the telephony service automatically accessible from a telephone network address identified by the network address information;
- and
- recharge information including local exchange carrier account information.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.