ACCESS MODELING IN A COMMUNICATION DOMAIN

• US 20100145814A1
• Filed: 12/08/2008
• Published: 06/10/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: MEGHANI, DEVEN, KHOWASH, PRADEEP
• Application Number:
  US12/329,862
• Publication Number:
  US 20100145814A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]

Abstract

System(s) and method(s) that facilitate efficient and automated processing of orders for access services are presented. An address validation engine evaluates received information that identifies at least part of a geographical location of a consumer ordering an access service, and accesses additional information to facilitate determining and validating the geographical location to a fine level of granularity. An access management component can facilitate automatically determining an available access provider(s) based on the validated geographical location. The access management component employs a rule engine to facilitate automatically and dynamically determining cost of the access service and selecting an access provider based on predefined rules in accordance with predefined access criteria. Electronic bonding is employed to facilitate automatic communication of information between the access provider and an entity processing the order to facilitate processing the order, provisioning the access service, and billing the consumer.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates efficient processing of orders for access services, comprising:

An address validation engine that determines and validates a geographic location associated with a consumer that requests an access service based at least in part received subset of information associated with the consumer, the validated geographic location is determined to a sub-address level, and the subset of information comprises at least a portion of the geographic location associated with the consumer; and

an access management component that automatically and dynamically determines a cost of the access service and an access provider that provides the access service based at least in part on predefined access criteria.

2. The system of claim 1, the sub-address level relates to at least one of a room number, a floor number, or a building number associated with the validated geographic location.

3. The system of claim 1, the address validation engine presents one or more geographic locations that are potentially associated with the consumer.

4. The system of claim 3, the access management component determines a respective confidence level for at least a portion of at least one of the one or more geographic locations and respectively highlights the at least a portion of the at least one of the one or more geographic locations based at least in part on a respective confidence level associated with the at least a portion of the at least one of the one or more geographic locations to facilitate validating one of the one or more geographic locations.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a rule engine that contains one or more rules that facilitate determining the cost of the access service and the access provider, wherein the one or more rules are generated in accordance with the predefined access criteria.

6. The system of claim 5, the predefined access criteria relates to at least one of the validated geographic location associated with the consumer, whether a particular access provider can provide the access service to the validated geographic location, respective costs of the access service from respective access providers, whether a particular access provider is able to provide the access service within a specified time frame, whether an access provider meets or exceeds specified performance parameters in relation to providing the access service or other services, or preference of the consumer with regard to an access provider.

7. The system of claim 6, the access management component selects the access provider based at least in part on the access provider being able to provide the access service at lowest cost as compared to other access providers when the access provider also meets other predefined access criteria.

8. The system of claim 6, the rule engine respectively weights each access criterion of the predefined access criteria, and the access management component evaluates each available access provider, generates a respective rating for each available access provider, and selects an available access provider having the highest rating to be the access provider to provide the access service based at least in part on the predefined access criteria.

9. The system of claim 1, the access management component automatically generates an access service request and autopopulates at least one information field in the access service request to facilitate provisioning the access service for the consumer.

10. The system of claim 1, the access management component employs electronic bonding (e-bonding) that comprises a customized interfaces that enables automatic communication of information related to the order between the access management component and the access provider to facilitate at least one of routing of the order, processing of the order, provisioning of the access service, tracking status of the order, or billing the consumer for the access service.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a central repository that stores and provides information related to processing orders for access services, comprising at least one of an address data store that stores and provides information that facilitates determining and validating the geographic location of the consumer to a sub-address level, a service data store that stores and provides information that facilitates determining availability of an access provider to provide the access service to the consumer at the validated geographic location, or an access provider data store that stores and provides information that facilitates determining cost of the access service and the access provider that will provide the access service.

12. The system of claim 1, the access management component generates a request for access service associated with another consumer and stores the request, the request comprising at least one parameter related to an access service associated with the request.

13. The system of claim 12, the access management component tracks an amount of time that the request for access service is pending, and, when the request is accessed for further processing, the access management component determines the amount of time that the request for access service has been pending and determines that the at least one parameter is no longer valid if more than a predetermined amount of time has elapsed since the request for access service was generated or determines that the at least one parameter remains valid if less than a predetermined amount of time has elapsed since the request for access service was generated.

14. The system of claim 13, the at least one parameter relates to at least one of cost of the access service or availability of an access provider to provide the access service.

15. The system of claim 1, the access management component generates an object that stores information related to the order for access service, the object is one of a token, a file, or a data packet.

16. A method that facilitates processing an order for an access service associated with a consumer, comprising:

validating a geographic location associated with the consumer to a specified level of granularity based at least in part on received information comprising geographical information that at least partially identifies the geographic location; and

automatically and dynamically determining cost of the access service and an access provider that will provide the access service to the consumer at the validated geographic location based at least in part on the validated geographic location and predefined access criteria.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving the information comprising the geographical information that at least partially identifies the geographic location;

retrieving additional information to facilitate validating the geographic location;

presenting one or more geographic locations;

determining respective confidence levels for at least a portion of the one or more geographic locations; and

respectively highlighting the at least a portion of the one or more geographic locations based at least in part on the respective confidence levels to facilitate validating one of the one or more geographic locations.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

indicating that a geographic location is not validated when the geographic location is not accurately determined to the specified level of granularity;

requesting new information, comprising new geographical information that at least partially identifies the geographic location, from the consumer to facilitate validating the geographic location associated with the consumer;

retrieving other information to facilitate validating the geographic location; and

presenting one or more other geographic locations.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

determining type of access service requested by the consumer; and

automatically determining whether at least one access provider of a plurality of access providers is available to provide the access service.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

accessing at least one predefined rule that is generated in accordance with the predefined access criteria;

retrieving access provider information respectively associated with a plurality of access providers; and

evaluating information contained in the order and the access provider information to facilitate automatically and dynamically determining the cost of the access service and the access provider in accordance with the at least one predefined rule.

21. The method of claim 20, the access provider information comprising at least one of cost of the access service, time frame for providing the access service to the consumer, or performance data, respectively associated with each of the plurality of access providers.

22. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

automatically and dynamically selecting the access provider that offers the access service at a lowest cost to provide the access service, while meeting predefined minimum standards related to other predefined access criteria.

23. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

respectively weighting each access criterion of the predefined access criteria;

generating a rating value for each of the plurality of access providers based at least in part on the at least one predefined rule in accordance with the respective weighting of each access criterion; and

automatically and dynamically selecting the access provider that has a highest rating value to provide the access service.

24. The method of claim 16, the predefined access criteria relates to at least one of the validated geographic location associated with the consumer, whether a particular access provider can provide the access service to the validated geographic location, respective costs of the access service from respective access providers, whether a particular access provider is able to provide the access service within a specified time frame, whether an access provider meets or exceeds specified performance parameters in relation to providing the access service or other services, or preference of the consumer with regard to an access provider.

25. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

generating an access service request;

autopopulating at least one field in the access service request with information associated with the order for the access service; and

routing the access service request to the access provider.

26. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

provisioning the access service; and

billing the consumer for the access service.

27. The method of claim 26, further comprising:

utilizing electronic bonding (e-bonding) to facilitate automatically communicating information related to the order between the access provider and an entity processing the order to facilitate at least one of routing of the order for the access service, processing of the order for the access service, provisioning the access service, billing the consumer for access service, or checking the status of the order for the access service.

28. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

generating a request for access service associated with a consumer;

entering at least one parameter in the request for access service;

generating a time stamp indicating the data and time the request for access service was generated;

associating the time stamp with the request for access service; and

storing the request for access service and time stamp.

29. The method of claim 28, further comprising:

monitoring an amount of time that the request for access service has been pending;

accessing the stored request for access service and time stamp;

determining whether the at least one parameter in the request for access service is valid based at least in part on the time stamp and the amount of time that the request for access service has been pending; and

at least one of;

indicating that the at least one parameter is valid if the request for access service has not been pending for more than a predetermined amount of time, and

submitting the request for access service as an order for access service for processing;

or

indicating that the at least one parameter is not valid if the request for access service has been pending for more than a predetermined amount of time, and

requesting at least one new parameter value to replace the at least one parameter with a valid parameter value.

30. A computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause a computer to perform the following acts:

validating a geographic location associated with a consumer to a specified level of granularity based at least in part on received information comprising geographical information that at least partially identifies the geographic location; and

automatically determining cost of an access service and an access provider that will provide the access service to the consumer at the validated geographic location, based at least in part on the validated geographic location and predefined access criteria, to facilitate processing an order for the access service associated with the consumer and provisioning of the access service.

31. An apparatus comprising:

means for validating a geographic location associated with a consumer to a specified level of granularity based at least in part on received information comprising geographical information that at least partially identifies the geographic location;

means for automatically and dynamically determining cost of an access service and selecting an access provider that will provide the access service to the consumer at the validated geographic location, based at least in part on the validated geographic location and predefined access criteria, to facilitate processing an order for the access service associated with the consumer and provisioning of the access service.