System and method for improved billing records
First Claim
1. A method of generating a default call record or an expanded call record to store information about a telephone call from a calling location to a destination address, said method comprising the steps of:
- (1) analyzing the telephone call to determine whether the default call record is sufficiently large to store call information pertaining to the telephone call, or whether the expanded call record must be used to store said call information pertaining to the telephone call;
(2) generating the default call record or the expanded call record for the telephone call as determined by step (1);
(3) recording timepoints in epoch time format in the default call record or the expanded call record as determined by step (1); and
(4) sending the default call record or the expanded call record, as determined by step (1), to a billing center upon termination of the telephone call.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for the switches of a telecommunications network to generate call records for telephone calls using a flexible and expandable record format. Upon receipt of a telephone call, a switch in the network analyzes the telephone call to determine whether the default call record is sufficiently large to store call record information pertaining to the telephone call, or whether the expanded call record must be used to store the call information pertaining to the telephone call. After determining which call record to use, the switch generates the default or expanded call record. The switch sends a billing block, comprised of completed call records, to a billing center upon filling an entire billing block.
50 Citations
14 Claims
-
1. A method of generating a default call record or an expanded call record to store information about a telephone call from a calling location to a destination address, said method comprising the steps of:
-
(1) analyzing the telephone call to determine whether the default call record is sufficiently large to store call information pertaining to the telephone call, or whether the expanded call record must be used to store said call information pertaining to the telephone call; (2) generating the default call record or the expanded call record for the telephone call as determined by step (1); (3) recording timepoints in epoch time format in the default call record or the expanded call record as determined by step (1); and (4) sending the default call record or the expanded call record, as determined by step (1), to a billing center upon termination of the telephone call. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
-
-
10. A communications switch for generating a default call record or an expanded call record to store information about a telephone call from a calling location to a destination address, said communications switch comprising:
-
analyzing means for analyzing the telephone call to determine whether the default call record is sufficiently large to store call information pertaining to the telephone call, or whether the expanded call record must be used to store said call information pertaining to the telephone call; generating means for generating the default call record or the expanded call record for the telephone call as determined by said analyzing means; recording means for recording timepoints in epoch time format in the default call record or the expanded call record; and sending means for sending the default call record or the expanded call record to a billing center upon termination of the telephone call. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14)
-
Specification