At&t Intellectual Property I, LP

At&t Knowledge Ventures, LP

Frank N Fedele

Stanford Emery Pennington, Jr

Tami Durbon

Michaeline Klebba

Robert Chiczewski

Umadevi Kanakasabai

A designated service provider of a customer having slamming protection on their account may not be changed without authorization from the customer to remove the slamming protection. When a customer's telephone company receives a request to change the customer's long distance provider and subsequently determines that the customer has slamming protection on their account, the telephone company notifies the requester that the requested change may not be provisioned due to the slamming protection. The customer's authorization to remove the slamming protection is provided by the requester in the form of an audio file that is reviewed by the telephone company. If the telephone company or an agent of the telephone company listens to the audio file and approves the request, then the customer's slamming protection is removed.

Removing slamming protection to permit a change in service providers

A system for removing a protection associated with an account of a customer that prevents a change of a service provider of the customer includes a database server configured to receive a request from a prospective service provider of the customer to remove the protection associated with the customer's account when authorization of the customer is required to effect the change of the service provider. The request includes an electronic address of an audio file including a customer's authorization to remove the protection. The system also includes a computer configured to access the audio file based on the electronic address and to indicate whether to remove the protection based on the audio file, and a customer care ordering system configured to remove the protection when the computer indicates that the protection is to be removed.

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Glen Ellyn, IL, United States of America

Frank N Fedele