Mci Communications Corporation

Mci, Inc.

Lee C Seydel

George M Kult

Douglas P Reiman

Padmanabhan Vijay

Gary W Leopold

David Alan Everett

Michael Lackman

Robert Gary Leonard

Anousheh Raissyan

Michele Pauline Torbert

Linda S King

Michael Joseph Jacobi

Kody Raymond Wood

The present invention telecommunications system provides validation of authorization codes input by a user for placing a call from a service area of a first telecommunications service provider with a calling card issued by another telecommunications service provider. The present invention allows the subscriber to place a special service call irrespective of whether the signaling protocol of the first service provider is different from the service provider to which the subscriber is a customer of. If the protocol of one telecommunications service provider is indeed different from the other service provider, a gateway residing in an intelligent service network node would convert the signaling protocol of the first service provider into a signaling protocol that is compatible with the other service provider. Consequently, the first service provider can quickly validate the authorization code provided by the subscriber by sending a query to the service provider that issued the calling card to the caller by referencing the LIDB database of the latter service provider. To achieve the conversion of one protocol to another, a system that includes an ISN node having gateways, file servers, a monitoring system, and mainframes is used. The gateway inside the ISN node has a client application program interface (API) component, a translate/convert component, a transaction capabilities part (TCAP) component and a SS7 API component. These various components, together with other controlling and interface components, are able to convert a first signaling protocol, for example a SS7 protocol, into a second protocol, for example a network information distributed service (NIDS) sequenced packet protocol.

SS7 gateway

A system and method for automatically processing telephone calls for alternative billing or for providing automated operator services. In one form, a call for which operator or alternative billing services are sought is routed through a telephone network to an automated operator facility. The call is accompanied by certain parameters which are indicative of the characteristics of the call. A menu of available automatic services is presented to the caller and the caller's selection from the menu is then received by the automated facility. The call parameters are used to retrieve a record containing customization features, preselected by a subscriber, which are those to be used in providing the particular service selected from the menu by the caller. The call is then automatically processed in accordance with the preselected customized features to provide the selected operator servile. During a call session the caller may dynamically select certain features such as the language in which the interactive portions of the call processing will be conducted.

Automated telephone operator services

System and method of validating special service calls having different

Calling card validation system and method therefor

Growing community of inventors

Iowa City, IA, United States of America

Lee C Seydel