Methods for providing overdraft protection for post-paid communication service plans
First Claim
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1. A method for implementing a service plan, the method comprising:
- defining, via a billing system server, a data plan account comprising a plurality of data plan periods, each having a predetermined number of data blocks;
defining, via the billing system server, an overdraft protection plan that adds overdraft data blocks to the data plan account;
the billing system server determining whether the predetermined number of data blocks has been reached during one of the plurality of data plan periods;
the billing system server selecting between borrowing data blocks from a future data plan period and charging the data plan account for additional overdraft data blocks, a cost per overdraft data block being less than a cost per data block normally associated with exceeding the predetermined number of data blocks during the data plan period; and
the billing system server adding data blocks to the data plan when the predetermined number of data blocks has been reached.
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Abstract
Methods for adding data blocks to a data subscription plan period. The methods include determining whether a threshold number of data blocks have been reached during the data subscription plan period; and incrementally adding data blocks to the data subscription plan when the threshold number of data blocks has been reached. The cost per data block of the added data blocks is less than the high-cost per data block rate normally associated with exceeding the threshold number of data blocks during the data subscription plan period.
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Citations
13 Claims
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1. A method for implementing a service plan, the method comprising:
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defining, via a billing system server, a data plan account comprising a plurality of data plan periods, each having a predetermined number of data blocks; defining, via the billing system server, an overdraft protection plan that adds overdraft data blocks to the data plan account; the billing system server determining whether the predetermined number of data blocks has been reached during one of the plurality of data plan periods; the billing system server selecting between borrowing data blocks from a future data plan period and charging the data plan account for additional overdraft data blocks, a cost per overdraft data block being less than a cost per data block normally associated with exceeding the predetermined number of data blocks during the data plan period; and the billing system server adding data blocks to the data plan when the predetermined number of data blocks has been reached. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. An overdraft protection system for implementing an overdraft protection plan for a data plan account for a post paid data plan that defines an allocation of data blocks in a communication network, the overdraft protection system comprising:
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a billing system server comprising; a processor; and a computer readable memory; the billing system server being configured to; define a data plan account comprising a plurality of data plan periods, each having a predetermined number of data blocks; define the overdraft protection plan that adds overdraft data blocks to the data plan account; monitor data block usage on the data plan account; determine whether the predetermined number of data blocks has been reached during a predefined data plan period associated with the data plan account; determine whether the data plan account is subscribed to the overdraft protection plan; select between borrowing data blocks from a future data plan period and charging the data plan account for additional overdraft data blocks if the data plan account is subscribed to the overdraft protection plan; add data blocks to the allocation defined by the data plan if the predetermined number of data blocks has been reached; and modify the data plan account to indicate the added data blocks. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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Specification