Methods for providing overdraft protection for post-paid communication service plans
AssigneeAT&T Mobility II LLC
InventorsCoulter C. Henry, Jr., Francis Richard Lazaro, Jr.
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.
Claims17
A method for implementing a service plan, comprising:
- defining a calling plan account comprising a plurality of calling plan periods, each having a predetermined number of minutes;
- defining an overdraft protection plan that adds overdraft minutes to the calling plan account;
- determining whether the predetermined number of minutes has been reached during the calling plan period;
- selecting between borrowing minutes from a future calling plan period and charging the account for additional overdraft minutes, the cost per minute of the overdraft minutes being less than the cost per minute normally associated with exceeding the threshold number of minutes during the calling plan period;
- and
- adding minutes to the calling plan when the predetermined number of minutes has been reached.
An overdraft protection system for implementing an overdraft protection plan for a calling plan account for a post paid calling plan that defines an allocation of minutes in a communication network, comprising:
- a billing system server comprising:
- a processor;
- and
- a computer readable memory;
- the billing system server being configured to:
- define the calling plan account as comprising a plurality of calling plan periods each having a predetermined number of minutes;
- define the overdraft protection plan that adds overdraft minutes to the calling plan account;
- monitor calling plan usage on the account;
- determine whether the predetermined number of minutes has been reached during a predefined calling plan period associated with the account;
- determine whether the account is subscribed to the overdraft protection plan;
- select between borrowing minutes from a future calling plan period and charging the account for additional overdraft minutes if the plan is subscribed to the overdraft protection plan;
- add minutes to the allocation defined by the calling plan if the predetermined number of minutes has been reached;
- and
- modify the account to indicate the added minutes.
A method for selectively providing overdraft protection to a user of a subscriber based communications network, comprising:
- activating a post paid account for the user, the user subscribing to a calling plan comprising a plurality of calling plan periods with a predetermined base level of minutes allotted to each calling plan period, the account information being recorded in a billing system server;
- defining a calling plan account comprising a plurality of calling plan periods each having a predetermined number of minutes;
- defining an overdraft protection plan that adds overdraft minutes to the calling plan account;
- monitoring the account usage using the billing system server;
- selecting between borrowing additional minutes from a future calling plan period and charging the account for additional overdraft minutes;
- and
- automatically adjusting the calling plan, using the billing system server, to provide the additional minutes in predetermined first block size increments as the account usage increases above the base level of minutes.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.