Method and apparatus for identifying telephone callers who have been unsuccessful in reaching a called destination

• US 6,208,721 B1
• Filed: 01/22/1999
• Issued: 03/27/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 01/22/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: WSOU Investments, LLC (WSOU Holdings, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Welch, Carol H., Feinberg, Brion Noah
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, DUC MINH
• Application Number:
  US09/235,435
• Time in Patent Office: 795 Days
• Field of Search: 379/111-115, 379/120-121, 379/127, 379/133-134, 379/201, 379/207, 379/265-266, 379/309, 379/34, 379/37
• US Class Current: 379/134
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/00 Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/58 based on statistics of usage or network monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/0188 Network monitoring; statistics on usage on called/calling number
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/08 Indicating faults in circuits or apparatus
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/2218 Call detail recording

Abstract

A system identifies calling parties who are unable to successfully complete calls to a called party. Call attempt failure records are retrieved from a local exchange carrier that services the calling parties, from a local exchange carrier that services the called party, and from an interexchange carrier that carries calls between the two local exchanges. Call completion records are retrieved from the local exchange carrier serving the called party. The failure records are compared to the completion records to determine which calling parties experienced one or more failed call attempt to the called party, and of these calling parties, which parties also failed to complete subsequent call attempts to the called party. The system also reports the intensity of calls made by these parties to the called party over a specified time period.

Claims

1. A system for identifying one or more calling parties who were unsuccessful in reaching a called destination, the system comprising:

a collector for collecting information about call attempts and call completions by each calling party to the called destination, wherein said collector collects call attempt information from a first network management system responsive to a local exchange carrier terminating said calling parties, collects call attempt and call completion information from a second network management system responsive to a local exchange carrier terminating said called destination and collects call attempt information from a third network management system responsive to an interexchange carrier network interconnecting said local exchange carriers; and

an analyzer for comparing the call attempt information with the call completion information to determine whether any of the one or more calling parties experienced at least one call attempt failure without also experiencing a subsequent call completion to the called destination.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said collector further collects call completion data from a call center in the local exchange network terminating said called destination.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the call attempt and call completion information includes an identifier for each calling party and a chronological stamp.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein said identifier is an automatic number identifier (ANI) and said chronological stamp is a time and date stamp.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said analyzer further determines an intensity of call attempts by each calling party over a specified period of time.

6. The system of claim 1, said system further comprising a first storage device for storing information retrieved by said collector, and a second storage device for storing information produced by said analyzer.

7. The system of claim 6, said system further comprising a user interface for receiving user requests, transmitting user requests to said collector and said analyzer, selectively retrieving information produced and stored by said collector and said analyzer in response to the user requests, and displaying the retrieved information.

8. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein the called party has a plurality of associated destination number identifiers (DNIs) the collector collects call attempt and call completion information for each of the plurality of DNIs, and the analyzer identifies any calling party having at least one call attempt failure associated with any of the plurality of DNIs that was not matched by a subsequent call completion to one of the plurality of DNIs.

9. A method for identifying a calling party whose call attempt to a called destination is unsuccessful, wherein the calling party is terminated by an originating network interconnected to an interexchange network and the called destination is terminated bv a destination network also interconnected to the interexchange network, the method comprising the steps of:

collecting call attempt data independently from a first network management system supporting the originating network, a second network management system supporting the interexchange network and a third network management system supporting the destination network;

collecting call completion data from the third network management system supporting the destination network;

storing the call attempt data and the call completion data; and

comparing the call attempt data and the call completion data according to pre-determined criteria.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said call attempt and call completion data includes an identifier for said calling party and a chronological stamp.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein said collector collects call completion data from a call center terminated in the local exchange network terminating said called destination.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein said pre-determined criteria specify identifying each calling party experiencing at least one call attempt failure without also experiencing a subsequent call completion to the called destination within a first pre-determined time period.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein said pre-determined criteria specify identifying an intensity of call attempts by the calling party over a second pre-determined time period.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein said pre-determined criteria are established by a party associated with the called destination.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the called party has a plurality of associated destination number identifiers (DNIs) the collector collects call attempt and call completion information for each of the plurality of DNIs, and the analyzer identifies any calling party having at least one call attempt failure associated with any of the plurality of DNIs that was not matched by a subsequent call completion to one of the plurality of DNIs.