System and gateway system for managing phone numbers and user IDs

• US 20070129049A1
• Filed: 11/20/2006
• Published: 06/07/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/24/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Inventors: Kikuchi, Daisuke, Hirai, Jun, Ito, Takashi, Endo, Satoshi, Oishi, Yasuhiro
• Application Number:
  US11/602,752
• Publication Number:
  US 20070129049A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/403
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42042 Notifying the called party of information on the calling party details within substation equipment H04M1/57, signalling details H04Q3/72
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42144 by service provider
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4931 Directory assistance systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/26 Network addressing or numbering for mobility support

Abstract

In a service providing server, a transfer/re-assignment detection section detects that a transfer or re-assignment has occurred from information notified from a customer information management apparatus, and in response to this, a user ID creation section creates a user ID to identify a new user. A contract information management section stores the user information containing the user ID in correspondence with the phone number and a service component acquires the user ID corresponding to the phone number of the mobile phone with reference to the user information.

Claims

1. A system which manages phone numbers uniquely assigned to individual mobile phones for communication on a cellular phone network in correspondence with user IDs uniquely assigned to the respective users of the mobile phones to identify the users by a server on a network other than said cellular phone network, comprising:

a detection section that detects the occurrence of a transfer of a mobile phone whose user information including a phone number and user ID is managed in said system or a re-assignment of a phone number identical to a phone number of a mobile phone whose user information was managed in the past in said system;

a user ID creation section that creates a new user ID for a new user to whom said mobile phone has been transferred or the same phone number has been re-assigned when said detection section detects said transfer or said re-assignment; and

a management section that associates the new user ID for said new user created by said user ID creation section with the phone number of the mobile phone transferred to said new user or said re-assigned phone number and manages said phone number and new user ID as user information of said new user.

2. The system according to claim 1, further comprising a counter section that counts up a predetermined digit of a phone number as a start position according to codes other than numerical values every time said detection section detects a transfer or re-assignment,

wherein said user ID creation section converts the count value output by said counter section to a user ID.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein said management section comprises a first management section that stores master information of said user information and a plurality of second management sections that store replicas of said master information and said plurality of second management sections can reference the replicas of said master information in parallel.

4. A gateway system interposed between a cellular phone network and the Internet, comprising:

a detection section that interprets information notified from a customer information management apparatus that manages customer information and detects the occurrence of a transfer of a mobile phone whose user information including a phone number and user ID is managed in said gateway system or a re-assignment of a phone number identical to a phone number of a mobile phone whose user information was managed in the past in said gateway system;

a user ID creation section that creates a new user ID for a new user to whom said mobile phone has been transferred or the same phone number has been re-assigned when said detection section detects said transfer or said re-assignment;

a management section that associates the new user ID for said new user created by said user ID creation section with the phone number of the mobile phone transferred to said new user or said re-assigned phone number and manages said phone number and new user ID as user information of said new user; and

a conversion section that converts, when the mobile phone whose user information is registered in said management section accesses the server on said network, the phone number of said mobile phone to said user ID according to said user information of said mobile phone registered in said management section.

5. The gateway system according to claim 4, wherein said management section comprises a first management section that manages master information of said user information and a plurality of second management sections that store replicas of the user information replicated from said master information, and

said conversion section acquires said user information from any one of said plurality of second management sections.

6. The gateway system according to claim 5, wherein said conversion section is constructed of a plurality of service components and each of said service components caches and uses said user information acquired from said plurality of second management sections.

7. The gateway system according to claim 6, wherein each of said service components caches the user information incorporated from said second management section, while when a transfer of said mobile phone or re-assignment of the phone number occurs, the user information cached so far is deleted after the replicas of said user information are reflected in each of said second management sections.

8. The gateway system according to claim 7, wherein said management section registers the number of times the user ID is changed in the user information for each phone number and each of said service components notifies an error to the mobile phone when the number of times the user ID is changed in the cached user information does not match the number of times the user ID is changed stored in said management section.

9. A method of managing phone numbers of mobile phones and user IDs to identify users of the mobile phones in a gateway system interposed between a cellular phone network and the Internet, comprising:

interpreting information notified from a customer information management apparatus that manages customer information and detecting the occurrence of a transfer of a mobile phone whose user information including a phone number and user ID is managed in said gateway system or re-assignment of a phone number identical to a phone number of a mobile phone whose user information was managed in the past by said gateway system;

creating a new user ID for a new user to whom said mobile phone has been transferred or the same phone number has been re-assigned when said transfer or said re-assignment is detected;

associating a new user ID for said new user created with the phone number of the mobile phone transferred to said new user or said re-assigned phone number and managing said phone number and new user ID as the user information of said new user; and

converting, when said mobile phone accesses a server on said Internet, the phone number of said mobile phone to said user ID according to said user information of said mobile phone.