Fraud prevention apparatus and method for performing policing functions for telephone services
First Claim
1. An apparatus for performing policing functions for telephone services in a telephone network, wherein prescribed actions are conditionally imposed based on the properties of traffic on a communications channel, comprising:
- (a) a channel state detector coupled to said communications channel and operative to enable and disable the policing functions;
(b) a traffic classifier coupled to said communications channel operative to classify traffic on said communications channel into a traffic class;
(c) a source classifier coupled to said communications channel operative to determine which end of the communications channel is the dominant source of traffic; and
(d) a regulator device coupled to said traffic and source classifiers and to said communications channel and operative to initiate conditional imposition of prescribed actions if the policing functions are enabled, the conditional imposition being based on the traffic class and the determination of the source classifier.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An apparatus and method is disclosed for performing policing functions for specialized telephone services, and for mitigating fraudulent usage of such services in ubiquitous telephone networks that carry voice, facsimile or voice-band-data traffic. Signal processing is used to determine the properties of traffic present on a channel at a given point in time, and actions are conditionally imposed based on such traffic properties. A first embodiment of the invention can be applied to prevent fraudulent use of telephone services through suppression of an answer supervision response. A second embodiment of the invention can also be applied for regulation of access to specialized telephone services which depend on the manner of customers'"'"' use of such services.
43 Citations
32 Claims
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1. An apparatus for performing policing functions for telephone services in a telephone network, wherein prescribed actions are conditionally imposed based on the properties of traffic on a communications channel, comprising:
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(a) a channel state detector coupled to said communications channel and operative to enable and disable the policing functions; (b) a traffic classifier coupled to said communications channel operative to classify traffic on said communications channel into a traffic class; (c) a source classifier coupled to said communications channel operative to determine which end of the communications channel is the dominant source of traffic; and (d) a regulator device coupled to said traffic and source classifiers and to said communications channel and operative to initiate conditional imposition of prescribed actions if the policing functions are enabled, the conditional imposition being based on the traffic class and the determination of the source classifier. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)
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28. A method for performing policing functions for telephone services in a telephone network having network controlling devices and a communications channel so as to conditionally impose prescribed actions on the communications channel based upon the properties of traffic thereon, comprising the steps of:
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(a) determining whether said communications channel is in a state that warrants activation of said policing functions; (b) classifying the traffic into a traffic class; (c) determining which end of the communications channel is the dominant source of traffic; and (d) initiating conditional imposition of prescribed actions if the policing functions are enabled, the conditional imposition being based upon the traffic class and the determination in step (c). - View Dependent Claims (29, 30, 31, 32)
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Specification