At&t Bell Laboratories

At+t Corp.

Michael W Funk

David F McGuigan

Sue A Lawson

Thomas A Dunn

Brenda B Amarant

Stephen M Kocan

Mark C Pollman

Ilane L Mathews

Erik N Breden

Kari O'Connell

A system for completing air-to-ground telephone calls is arranged so that a call originating from an aircraft is received in a ground station and directed to a special purpose platform disposed in the land-based telecommunications network. The platform, which may be implemented as an interactive voice response system, includes the capability to interact with the caller by (a) collecting billing information, which may be a commercial credit card or a telephone calling card, or other billing mechanism which can be initiated by a request for connection to a telephone operator; (b) validating credit cards and telephone calling cards by initiating a query and receiving a response from elements in the telecommunications network or from an external database; (c) providing auxiliary features such as block calling, free calls, speed dialing, sequence calling, etc.; and (d) depending upon the type of call involved, completing the call as either a traditional 1+long distance call, or as a 0+(e.g., operator assisted) call. After completion of each call, an automated message accounting (AMA) billing record is created and transmitted to the network, for bill processing.

System for completing air-to-ground telephone calls

A communication network uses a network switch number (NSN) and a class-of-service classification (COS) code to route calls through the network. When a call is received at an originating switch of the network, the dialed number is used to select the NSN which identifies a network terminating switch which connects to the called party. The network uses received call signaling information and stored trunk information and possibly network database information to determine the COS code. The COS code is also used at the terminating switch to identify the type of service trunk to connect to the called party. In another feature, only the network switch number is used to route the call over the network. In accordance with yet another feature, the COS code may be used to select specific network trunks without requiring the specification of the NSN.

Method of and apparatus for numbering and routing calls through a

A transaction recording and rating method and apparatus rates communication transactions completed using one or more Carrier Switched Network Point Of Attachment (CSN POA) locations of a communication network. The network stores a unique code for each CSN POA location. The rating systems store rating parameters associated with each CSN POA code. During a transaction (e.g., a call), one or more CSN POA locations are identified and their CSN POA codes are recorded. A transaction charge is calculated from the prestored rating parameter(s) obtained using the one or more CSN POA codes in addition to other information.

Method and apparatus for recording and rating telecommunication

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Mountainside, NJ, United States of America

Michael W Funk