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 Eko-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.
Claims17
A system comprising:
- a processor;
- and
- a computer-readable storage device comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
- determining whether a communications account of a user is associated with an overdraft-protection plan,
- providing, in response to determining that the communications account is associated with the overdraft-protection plan, a user-inquiry message to determine whether the user would like to borrow additional data blocks from a future data plan period or be charged a predetermined cost per additional data block for the additional data blocks, and
- receiving, following providing the user-inquiry message, a user instruction to add data blocks to a present data plan period of the communications account by a mechanism selected from a group consisting of:
- borrowing the additional data blocks from the future data plan period, and
- charging the predetermined cost per additional data block for the additional data blocks.
A method comprising:
- determining, by a system having a processor, whether a communications account of a user is associated with an overdraft-protection plan;
- providing, by the system, in response to determining that the communications account is associated with the overdraft-protection plan, a user-inquiry message to determine whether the user 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;
- and
- receiving, by the system, following providing the user-inquiry message, a user instruction to add data blocks to a present data plan period of the communications account by a mechanism selected from a group consisting of:
- borrowing the additional data blocks from the future data plan period, and
- charging the predetermined cost per additional data block for the additional data blocks.
A computer-readable storage device comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
- determining whether a communications account of a user is associated with an overdraft-protection plan;
- providing, in response to determining that the communications account is associated with the overdraft-protection plan, a user-inquiry message to determine whether the user 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;
- and
- receiving, following providing the user-inquiry message, a user instruction to add data blocks to a present data plan period of the communications account by a mechanism selected from a group consisting of:
- borrowing the additional data blocks from the future data plan period, and
- charging the predetermined cost per additional data block for the additional data blocks.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.