Customer owned telephone numbers

• US 20070147358A1
• Filed: 12/27/2005
• Published: 06/28/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Level 3 Communications LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Level 3 Communications Incorporated (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hunter, Dena, Mikleton, Christopher
• Granted Patent: US 8,031,856 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/356
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/128 Details of addressing, directories or routing tables

Abstract

According to various embodiments of the present invention, systems and methods for routing telephone calls from host switch to remote switch in a Voice Over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) network. A host switch in the VoIP network may be communicably coupled with a plurality of remote switches and with a public switched telephone network (“PSTN”); the host switch may receive a call from PSTN having signaling that includes a called party number field and/or a location routing number field. Based on the called party number field and/or the location routing number field, host switch identifies a target remote switch from among the plurality of remote switches that is associated with the called party number field by, for example, querying a database of associations between location routing numbers and/or telephone numbers and remote switches. Host switch then sends the call to identified target remote switch.

Claims

1. A method of routing a call to a customer-owned telephone number, the method comprising:

providing a host switch in a voice over internet protocol (“

VoIP”

) network communicably coupled with a plurality of remote switches and with a public switched telephone network (“

PSTN”

);

receiving a call from the PSTN with the host switch, the call having signaling comprising a location routing number field;

identifying a target remote switch of the plurality of remote switches that is associated with the location routing number field; and

sending the call to the target remote switch based on the identification.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the target remote switch of the plurality of remote switches that is associated with the location routing number field comprises querying an LRN/TN database within the VoIP network to identify the target remote switch that corresponds with at least a portion of the location routing number field.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the signaling further comprises a called party number field, and wherein identifying the target remote switch of the plurality of remote switches that is associated with the called party number field comprises querying a Number Portability Administration Center (“

NPAC”

) database to identify a location routing number field associated with the called party number field.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the signaling comprises first a calling party number field, second the location routing number field, and third a called party number field, and wherein the method further comprises:

transposing the location routing number field with the called party number field.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the target remote switch is a Class 5 softswitch.

6. A system comprising:

a computer, wherein the computer is communicably coupled to a computer readable medium, a voice over internet protocol (“

VoIP”

) network, a public switched telephone network (“

PSTN”

), and a plurality of remote switches, and wherein the computer readable medium includes instructions executable by the computer to;

receive a call from the PSTN, the call having signaling comprising a location routing number field;

identify a target remote switch of the plurality of remote switches that is associated with the location routing number field;

send the call to the target remote switch based on the identification.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the instructions executable by the computer to identify the target remote switch of the plurality of remote switches that is associated with the location routing number field further comprise instructions executable by the computer to query an LRN/TN database within the VoIP network to identify the target remote switch that corresponds with at least a portion of the location routing number field.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the signaling comprises first a calling party number field, second a location routing number field, and third the called party number field, and wherein the computer readable medium further includes instructions executable by the computer to:

transpose the location routing number field with the called party number field.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the target remote switch is a Class 5 softswitch.

10. A method for establishing a customer-owned telephone number routing system, the method comprising:

providing a host softswitch within a Voice Over Internet Protocol network, the host softswitch communicably coupled with a second network;

communicably coupling the host softswitch with a remote softswitch configured to connect calls to a subscriber;

associating the host softswitch with the remote softswitch in a local exchange routing guide (“

LERG”

) database;

provisioning a location routing number (“

LRN”

)/telephone number (“

TN”

) database with information associating an LRN and a block of telephone numbers with the remote softswitch;

receiving via the host softswitch a call from the second network for the subscriber, the second network identifying the host switch responsible for routing calls to the subscriber by querying the LERG database, the call comprising signaling comprising a called party number and the LRN;

determining the remote softswitch associated with the subscriber by querying the LRN/TN database based on the LRN; and

sending the call to the remote softswitch based on the determination.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the host softswitch is a Class 5 softswitch.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the host softswitch is a Class 4 softswitch.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the host softswitch is a hybrid Class 4/Class 5 softswitch.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the remote softswitch is a Class 5 softswitch.