Operational support system for telecommunication services

• US 7,568,020 B2
• Filed: 03/31/2003
• Issued: 07/28/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bagsby, Denis L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Barqadle; Yasin M
• Application Number:
  US10/402,361
• Publication Number:
  US 20040192205A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,311 Days
• Field of Search: 709201-206, 709217-219, 709/223, 709/226, 709/246, 719/330, 719/315
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5061 characterised by the interaction between service providers and their network customers, e.g. customer relationship management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0062 Provisions for network management

Abstract

In a particular embodiment, the disclosure is directed to a distributed communications system for use in support of telecommunication operations. The distributed computer system includes a telecommunications related application service and an integration service. The telecommunications related application service has access to a plurality of interconnection services and a plurality of different computing nodes. The integration service is coupled to the telecommunications related application services. The integration service is also coupled to a plurality of distributed resource systems. The integration service has access to at least one of the plurality of distributed resource systems in response to a communication transmitted to at least one of the plurality of interconnection services.

Claims

1. A distributed computer system in support of telecommunication operations, the distributed computer system comprising:

a telecommunications related application service adapted to receive customer service requests via a plurality of communication interfaces;

a server system having processing logic and memory accessible to the processing logic, wherein the memory stores an integration services application that includes;

an interface layer including a plurality of communication adapters;

a logic layer including a first interface and having access to a rules engine;

an object layer including a second interface, a transformation service, and an object; and

a resource layer including a plurality of resource interface modules, at least one of the plurality of resource interface modules having access to a plurality of diverse resource systems, at least one of the plurality of resource interface modules configured to receive a first data item from one of the plurality of diverse resource systems, wherein the transformation service is adapted to transform the first data item into the object, and wherein the logic layer has access to the object and is adapted to provide a second data item to the telecommunications related application service through at least one of the plurality of communication interfaces;

wherein the interface layer, the logic layer, the object layer and the resource layer are integrated via a plurality of reusable infrastructure modules; and

wherein the telecommunications related application service communicates with the integration services application via a plurality of infrastructure interfaces adapted to access the plurality of reusable infrastructure modules.

2. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of communication adapters are coupled to an application service, the application service accessible from a plurality of access channels.

3. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein the second data item represents usage data.

4. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein the second data item represents an address validation response.

5. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein the second data item represents a telephone number allocation.

6. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein the second data item represents customer information.

7. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of diverse resource systems is a business support system.

8. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of diverse resource systems is a regionally distributed trunk inventory management system.

9. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein the customer requests relate to address validation.

10. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein the customer requests relate to channel facility assignment.

11. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein the communication is associated with a telecommunications pre-ordering function.

12. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein the communication is associated with at least one of due date negotiation, dispatch facilitation, telephone number (TN) pooling, common language location information (CLLI) inquiry, primary interexchange code (PlC) and local primary interexchange code (LPIC) reference, network channel (NC) and network channel interface (NCI) inquiry, customer service information (CSI) access, pending/poster order lists and details, provisioning order lists and details, and bulk workload assessment.

13. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein the communication is associated with loop qualification.

14. The distributed computer system of claim 1, wherein the communication is associated with at least one of feature availability inquiry, universal service order code (USOC) and feature ID (FID) lookup, address inquiries by working telephone number (WTN), telephone number (TN) inquiries, telephone number (TN) reservation, telephone number (TN) confirmation, telephone number (TN) cancellation, and channel facility assignment (CFA) inquiries.

15. The distributed computer system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of interconnection services at a plurality of different computing nodes providing access to the telecommunications related application services, wherein the plurality of interconnection services are separated from a global network by a firewall.