Automatic routing system for telephonic services

• US 5,506,897 A
• Filed: 12/28/1994
• Issued: 04/09/1996
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/1993
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: NeuStar Information Services, Inc. (Neustar Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Murex Securities Limited (Wallsgrove Ltd.)
• Inventors: Moore, George G., Shaffer, James D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hofsass, Jeffery
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wolinsky, Scott
• Application Number:
  US08/365,325
• Time in Patent Office: 468 Days
• Field of Search: 379/220, 379/142, 379/127, 379/201, 379/202, 379/207, 379/265, 379/211, 379/221, 379/230, 370/62
• US Class Current: 379/220.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2242/22 Automatic class or number identification arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2242/30 Determination of the location of a subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42 Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers specially adapted for wireless communication networks H04W4/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42059 Making use of the calling party identifier
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4228 in networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42323 PBX's with CTI arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/493 Interactive information services, e.g. directory enquiries ; Arrangements therefor, e.g. interactive voice response [IVR] systems or voice portals
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13091 CLI, identification of calling line
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13097 Numbering, addressing
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13103 Memory
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13141 Hunting for free outlet, circuit or channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/1337 Operator, emergency services
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13377 Recorded announcement
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13378 Speech recognition, speech analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13541 routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13547 subscriber, e.g. profile, database, database access
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0029 Provisions for intelligent networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/66 Traffic distributors
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/72 Finding out and indicating number of calling subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 379/912 Geographically adaptive

Abstract

A system and method for automatically and seamlessly routing telephone calls across a telephone network. The system includes a telephone switch having a computer, a master file and client file stored in the computer, in which the master file is dynamically linked with the client file at routing time to produce a selected client telephone number which is transmitted across the telephone network. The system utilizes Automatic Number Identification to identify the calling party. The master file has a plurality of records having a telephone number field and a spatial key field and is updated frequently. The client file has a plurality of records having a spatial key field and a client telephone number. Methods of generating the client files for three client service area definitions are included in the present invention.

Claims

1. In a telecommunications network, an automated call processing system, comprising:

means for receiving a telephone number from a caller location, wherein the telephone number has an associated spatial key;

means for determining the spatial key of the telephone number;

means responsive to a dialed number for selecting data of a particular client from a plurality of client data accessible by the system;

means for finding the determined spatial key in the selected client data and retrieving spatial key dependent data from the client data, wherein;

a first location identified by the spatial key, said first location corresponding to the telephone number, is located within one of

(a) a predetermined radial distance from a second location corresponding to the retrieved spatial key dependent data and

(b) a geographic area bounded by a predetermined polygon that also encloses the second location; and

means for transmitting the retrieved spatial key dependent data to the telecommunications network, such that the caller is connected to the second location.

2. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the receiving means includes call decoding hardware.

3. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the means for determining the spatial key includes a master database.

4. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the means for finding the determined spatial key includes a client database.

5. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the transmitting means includes outbound calling means.

6. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the spatial key is a number.

7. The system defined in claim 6, wherein the spatial key is arbitrarily chosen so as to uniquely identify a geographic region.

8. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the spatial key comprises a postal code.

9. The system defined in claim 8, wherein the postal code comprises a zip+4 number.

10. The system defined in claim 8, wherein the postal code comprises a zip+6 number.

11. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the telephone number comprises an area code, a prefix and a suffix.

12. The system defined in claim 11, wherein the entire telephone number comprises at least ten digits.

13. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the spatial key provides a spatial resolution of at least 105 feet.

14. The system defined in claim 1, wherein a service area about the second location includes one or more postal coded areas, and wherein the postal coded areas are defined by zip codes.

15. The system defined in claim 1, additionally including means for providing selected information to be substituted for the telephone number.

16. The system defined in claim 1, additionally including means for enabling selected features.

17. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the spatial key comprises a location identifier.

18. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the radial distance is any client-defined distance and the polygon has any client-defined size and shape.

19. The system defined in claim 1, wherein the selected spatial key dependent data comprises a client telephone number.

20. A call processing system, comprising:

a telephone network;

a switch connected to the telephone network, the switch having a computer with a memory;

a master file comprising a plurality of records, each record having a telephone number field and a spatial key field, the master file stored in the computer;

a client file comprising a plurality of records, each record having a spatial key field and a client telephone number, the client file being stored in the computer, and wherein records are assigned to the client file based upon a location of a telephone, associated with the client telephone number, with respect to a geographic area of substantially any desired shape and size;

means, associated with the switch, for receiving a caller telephone number and a dialed telephone number from the telephone network;

means, associated with the switch, for selecting one of a plurality of client files, accessible by the computer, based on the dialed telephone number;

means, associated with the switch, for linking the master file and the client file to produce a selected client telephone number, wherein the master file is indexed by the received caller telephone number to provide a selected spatial key, and wherein the client file is indexed by the selected spatial key to provide the selected client telephone number; and

an outbound calling means associated with the switch for transmitting the selected client telephone number to the telephone network.

21. The system defined in claim 20, wherein the telephone network is a North American Standard public telephone network.

22. The system defined in claim 20, wherein the switch is a digital switch.

23. The system defined in claim 20, wherein the selected spatial key comprises a postal code.

24. The system defined in claim 23, wherein the postal code comprises a zip+4 code.

25. The system defined in claim 20, wherein the receiving means includes means for Automatic Number Identification (ANI).

26. The system defined in claim 20, additionally comprising means for exception handling wherein manual intervention is provided for handling non-routable exceptions in the linking means.

27. The system defined in claim 26, wherein the exception handling means includes means for processing the caller telephone number of a mobile telephone.

28. The system defined in claim 26, wherein the exception handling means includes means for processing the caller telephone number when the master file does not include a record having the caller telephone number.

29. The system defined in claim 26, wherein the exception handling means includes means for processing the caller telephone number when the client file does not include a record having the selected spatial key.

30. The system defined in claim 20, additionally comprising means for exception handling wherein manual intervention is provided for handling routable exceptions in the transmitting means.

31. The system defined in claim 20, wherein the linking means indexing makes use of a telephone number suffix.

32. In a telecommunications network, a method of automatically processing a telephone call, comprising the steps of:

automatically generating client tables comprising a plurality of records, each record comprising a spatial key and client information indicative of a geographic location, wherein for each client table, the method includes the step of providing a client service locations file containing a plurality of service location addresses, each location having a client-defined geographic service area of substantially any desired shape and size;

storing the client tables and a master table comprising a plurality of records, each record comprising a telephone number and a spatial key, in the telecommunications network;

receiving a caller telephone number and a dialed telephone number from the network;

indexing the master table with the received caller telephone number to obtain a master table record;

retrieving a spatial key from the master table record;

selecting one of the client tables from the plurality of client tables based on the dialed telephone number;

indexing the selected client table with the retrieved spatial key to obtain a selected client table record; and

retrieving selected client information from the selected client table record.

33. The method defined in claim 32, wherein the step of generating, for each client table, comprises the steps of:

standardizing the service location addresses and client-defined geographic service areas as a set of latitude and longitude coordinates;

windowing the coordinates of one of the geographic service areas with prestored spatial key windows having associated spatial key lists;

determining whether a predefined geographic area overlaps the one geographic service area; and

creating a client table record including an overlapping predefined geographic area and the client information of the one geographic service area.

34. The method defined in claim 33, additionally comprising the step of sorting a plurality of client table records by the spatial keys of said client table records.

35. The method defined in claim 33, additionally comprising the step of repeating the windowing step for another one of the geographic service areas, wherein each windowing step includes the step of repeating the determining step and the creating step for each coded geographic area contained within the current geographic service area.

36. The method defined in claim 32, additionally comprising the step of transmitting the selected client information to the network.

37. The method defined in claim 32, wherein the dialed telephone number is an "800" number.

38. The method defined in claim 32, wherein one of the service areas is defined by a predetermined radial distance.

39. The method defined in claim 32, wherein one of the service areas is defined by a predetermined area of a polygon.

40. The method defined in claim 32, wherein one of the service location addresses is defined to be the closest geographic distance to a location identified by the spatial key.

41. The method defined in claim 32, wherein each spatial key uniquely identifies an area in a coordinate system.

42. The method defined in claim 41, wherein the coordinate system comprises longitude and latitude coordinates.

43. The method defined in claim 41, wherein the coordinate system comprises Ordinance Survey coordinates.

44. The method defined in claim 32, wherein one of the spatial keys comprises a zip+4 code.

45. The method defined in claim 44, wherein one of the service areas includes one or more zip+4 coded areas.

46. The method defined in claim 32, wherein each record of the client table includes a distance between a service location address and a coded geographic area.

47. The method defined in claim 32, additionally comprising the step of transmitting the selected client information to the telecommunications network.

48. The method defined in claim 32, wherein the client information comprises a client telephone number.

49. The method defined in claim 32, wherein each spatial key comprises a postal code.

50. A table generation process for use in a call processing system in a telephone network, comprising the steps of:

providing a plurality of service locations each location having an associated, specified service area;

windowing coordinates of one of the service areas with a plurality of prestored spatial key windows, each spatial key window having an associated spatial key list, each spatial key list having one or more spatial keys, wherein each spatial key is indicative of a spatial key area, such that the windowing step generates a composite spatial key list; and

creating a client table record including one of the spatial keys contained within said one of the service areas and client information corresponding to said one of the service areas.

51. The method defined in claim 50, wherein the service area comprises an area defined by a preselected radial distance around the service location.

52. The method defined in claim 50, wherein the service area comprises a preselected geographic boundary, and wherein the boundary has substantially any client-defined size and shape.

53. The method defined in claim 52, wherein the boundary defines a polygon.

54. The method defined in claim 50, wherein the service location is defined by geographic coordinates.

55. The method defined in claim 50, wherein the client information comprises a client telephone number.

56. The method defined in claim 50, additionally comprising the step of repeating the windowing step for another one of the service areas, wherein each windowing step includes the step of repeating the creating step for each spatial key contained within the current service area.

57. The method defined in claim 50, wherein following the windowing step, the method comprises the step of overlapping spatial key areas corresponding to the spatial keys in the composite spatial key list with the service area so as to identify spatial keys located within the said one of the service areas.

58. In a telephone network, an automated call processing system, comprising:

call decoding means capable of determining a telephone number of a caller;

means responsive to the caller number for determining a spatial key;

means responsive to a dialed number for selecting a client database from a plurality of client databases accessible by the system;

means responsive to the spatial key for providing selected spatial key dependent data of a destination location for the selected client, wherein the destination location is associated with a service area having a client defined geographic configuration of substantially any desired shape and size; and

outbound calling means for transmitting the selected spatial key dependent data to the telephone network, such that the caller is connected to the destination location.

59. The system defined in claim 58, wherein the spatial key comprises a postal code.

60. The system defined in claim 59, wherein the postal code comprises a zip+4 number.

61. The system defined in claim 58, wherein said destination location lies within a service area comprising at least one predefined geographic area.

62. In a telephone network, an automated call processing system, comprising:

call decoding means for determining a telephone number of a caller, wherein the telephone number comprises an area code, a prefix and a suffix;

means responsive to the telephone number for determining a spatial key, wherein the telephone number and the spatial key are stored in a master database;

means responsive to the spatial key for providing client information of a destination location, wherein the destination location has a predefined geographic relationship to the source location, and wherein the relationship is determined by a user-defined perimeter about the destination location; and

outbound calling means for transmitting the client information to the telephone network, such that the caller is connected to the destination location.

63. The system defined in claim 62, wherein the user-defined perimeter defines a radial distance from the destination location.

64. The system defined in claim 62, wherein the user-defined perimeter defines a polygon about the destination location.

65. The system defined in claim 62, wherein the spatial key determining means utilizes the telephone number suffix to index the master database.

66. The system defined in claim 62, wherein the telephone number comprises a third party number.

67. In a telephone network, an automated call processing system, comprising:

call decoding means for determining an identifier of a first location;

means for determining a spatial key of the identifier;

means responsive to the spatial key for accessing client information corresponding to a second location, wherein the second location is associated with a service area having a client defined geographic configuration of substantially any desired shape and size; and

outbound calling means for transmitting the client information to the telephone network, such that the first location is connected to the second location by a routed telephone call.

68. The system defined in claim 67, wherein the spatial key comprises a postal code.

69. In a telephone network, an automated call processing system, comprising:

call decoding means for determining a telephone number of a caller;

means for determining a spatial key of the entire telephone number;

means for retrieving spatial key dependent data corresponding to a selected client location, wherein said means includes a client database and wherein the client database is created based on a plurality of client locations, each location having an associated client-defined service area of substantially any desired shape and size; and

outbound calling means for transmitting the spatial key dependent data to the telephone network, such that the caller is connected to the selected client location.

70. The system defined in claim 69, wherein the client database is selected from a plurality of client databases based on a telephone number transmitted from the caller.

71. The system defined in claim 69, wherein entries for spatial keys in the client database comprise:

for an exclusive service area, a single record entry per spatial key, the record comprising a client telephone number; and

for a non-exclusive service area, a multiple record entry per spatial key, each of the multiple records comprising a different client telephone number.

72. In a telephone network, a method of generating a client database comprising a plurality of records, each record comprising a spatial key and client information indicative of a service location, the method comprising the steps of:

providing a client service locations file containing a plurality of service location addresses, each location having a service area comprising a client-defined geographic configuration of substantially any desired shape and size;

standardizing the service location addresses and client-defined geographic service areas as a set of position determining coordinates;

windowing the coordinates with prestored spatial key windows so as to identify a first list of the windows that each service area overlaps;

determining a second list of spatial key defined areas overlapping the spatial key windows in the first list;

eliminating the spatial key defined areas in the second list that are not within one of the service areas; and

creating a plurality of client database records, wherein each record includes the spatial key corresponding to one of the spatial key areas in the second list and the client information corresponding with the service location.

73. The method defined by claim 72, wherein each record additionally includes a distance field.

74. The method defined by claim 73, wherein a distance value to be stored in the distance field is the distance from the service location address to the centroid of the spatial key area.

75. The method defined by claim 74, wherein the client database records are sorted by spatial key and by distance value for each spatial key.

76. The method defined by claim 75, additionally including the step of processing the sorted client database records to create a client database, wherein each record defines a service area that is closest to a caller location.

77. The method defined by claim 76, wherein the processing step selects the record with the shortest distance between the location of the caller and the client service location for each spatial key.

78. The method defined by claim 72, additionally comprising the step of loading the client database into a telephone network switch computer.

79. The method defined by claim 72, additionally comprising the steps of:

providing a client-specified polygonal trade area of substantially any desired shape and size for each client service location wherein the configuration of the trade area includes a plurality of vertices;

digitizing the coordinates of the vertices; and

building a line index file of points that define the boundary of the polygonal trade area.

80. In a telecommunications network, an automated call processing system, comprising:

call decoding means for determining a telephone number of a caller, wherein the caller number has an associated spatial key;

means for determining the spatial key of the caller number;

means responsive to a dialed number for selecting a client database from a plurality of client databases accessible by the system;

means for addressing the selected client database by the determined spatial key;

means for retrieving spatial key dependent data stored in the selected client database, wherein;

a first location identified by the spatial key, said final location corresponding to the caller number, is located within one of

(a) a predetermined radial distance from a second location corresponding to the retrieved spatial key dependent data and

(b) a geographic area bounded by a predetermined polygon that also encloses the second location; and

means for transmitting the retrieved spatial key dependent data to the telecommunications network.

81. The system defined in claim 80, additionally including means for providing selected information to be substituted for the caller number.

82. The system defined in claim 80, wherein the retrieved spatial key dependent data comprises a client telephone number.

83. In a telephone network call processing system, a method of generating a geographic database of spatial keys linked to client service areas and associated service area information, the method comprising the steps of:

providing a predefined master list of spatial keys identifying geographic areas defined by spatial coordinates;

supplying a list of client service areas of substantially any desired shape and size, wherein each service area is geographically defined by spatial coordinates; and

linking spatial keys from said predefined master list to client service areas based on the geographic spatial coordinate overlapping relationships between the client service areas and the spatial keys.

84. The method defined in claim 83, wherein one of the spatial keys comprises a telephone number.