At&t Bell Laboratories

At+t Corp.

Luis E Nieto

I Grace Tseng

Stephen Fuller

Karen S Billings

Karen B Burke

LaVerne A Hargraves

A system for delivering originating country information for international calls to a subscriber includes three separate processes. In a first process, the country code is extracted from either billing/routing data forwarded by the caller's national telephone network to the communication switching system of the destination country of the call, or from channel information associated with the call. In the second process, the originating county code is then inserted in either the calling party number or the destination number depending on the subscriber's terminal device egress arrangement. In the third process, the originating country code is delivered to the subscriber before the call is completed. Once received by the subscriber, the originating country information can be used to tailor customized services for the foreign caller. These customized services include for example, connecting callers from a given country to specialized attendants fluent in caller's native language or mapping the originating country code to the country's name for display to attendants.

System for processing calling party information for international

A system for delivering originating country information for international toll-free calls to a subscriber includes three separate processes. The country code is extracted from billing and routing data forwarded by the caller's national telephone network to the communication switching system of the destination country of the call, the originating country code is then inserted in either the calling party number or the destination number depending on subscriber's terminating arrangement and finally, the originating country code is delivered to the international toll-free subscriber before the call is completed. Once received by the subscriber, the originating country information can be used to tailor customized services for the foreign caller such as directing calls to attendants fluent in caller's language, or mapping the originating country code to the country name for display to attendants.

A Common Channel Signaling Network such as the SS7 network is configured as a virtual signaling network, such that the network is shared in common among several users. Each user, which may be a private network operator, an ICO, a RBOC, a cellular mobile carrier, or an interexchange carrier, appears to control the signaling network and is enabled to use a wide variety of its capabilities to transmit and receive both trunk signaling messages and database messages to and from other networks connected to the virtual signaling network. The invention is implemented by interconnecting signal transfer points (STPs) within the virtual signaling network that operate in accordance with our invention with the SS7 switches and/or signal transfer points of other networks. Signaling messages presented to the STPs in the virtual signaling network are screened to insure security, translated in accordance with stored translation tables so as to allow message transport between the user's network and the appropriate destination network, and then addressed and routed to the proper destinations.

Growing community of inventors

East Brunswick, NJ, United States of America

Luis E Nieto