Telephone line aggregated billing
First Claim
1. A method of pricing a call made over a network by a customer of the network, comprising the steps of:
- storing information specifying a billing plan of the customer and information specifying a plurality of telephone lines to which the billing plan applies, each telephone line having a separate billing account;
receiving a call made from one of the plurality of telephone lines at a network switch;
generating a record that describes the call;
receiving the record at a billing analysis system; and
determining a priced call value for the call based on the record, information specifying the customer billing plan and aggregated information relating to all of the plurality of separate billing accounts.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A method and system in which calls made on two or more phone lines of a customer are aggregated for billing and discount billing plans to which the customer subscribes are applied to the aggregated phone usage of the customer. In order to price a call made over a network by a customer of the network, information specifying a billing plan of the customer and information specifying a plurality of telephone lines to which the billing plan applies are stored. A call made from one of the plurality of telephone lines is received at a network switch and record that describes the call is generated. The record is received at a billing analysis system and a priced call value for the call is determined based on the record and the information specifying the customer billing plan. The record that describes the call comprises an identifier of the telephone line from which the call was made and priced call value for the call is determined by accessing the information specifying the customer billing plan using the identifier in the received record.
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Citations
24 Claims
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1. A method of pricing a call made over a network by a customer of the network, comprising the steps of:
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storing information specifying a billing plan of the customer and information specifying a plurality of telephone lines to which the billing plan applies, each telephone line having a separate billing account; receiving a call made from one of the plurality of telephone lines at a network switch; generating a record that describes the call; receiving the record at a billing analysis system; and determining a priced call value for the call based on the record, information specifying the customer billing plan and aggregated information relating to all of the plurality of separate billing accounts. - View Dependent Claims (2, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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3. The method of claim 3, further comprising the step of:
updating the customer'"'"'s current bill by adding the priced call value to the customer'"'"'s balance. - View Dependent Claims (4)
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9. A system for pricing a call made over a network by a customer of the network, comprising the steps of:
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a database storing information specifying a billing plan of the customer and information specifying a plurality of telephone lines to which the billing plan applies, each telephone line having a separate billing account; a network switch receiving a call made from one of the plurality of telephone lines and generating a record that describes the call; and a billing analysis system receiving the record and determining a priced call value for the call based on the record and the information specifying the customer billing plan and aggregated information relating to all of the plurality of separate billing accounts. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 24)
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17. A system for pricing a call made over a network by a customer of the network, comprising:
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means for storing information specifying a billing plan of the customer and information specifying a plurality of telephone lines to which the billing plan applies, each telephone line having a separate billing account; means for receiving a call made from one of the plurality of telephone lines; means for generating a record that describes the call; and means for determining a priced call value for the call based on the record and the information specifying the customer billing plan and aggregated information relating to all of the plurality of separate billing accounts. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
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Specification