Methods for identifying and recovering stranded and access-no-revenue network circuits

• US 7,779,098 B1
• Filed: 12/20/2005
• Issued: 08/17/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bajpay, Paritosh, Eslambolchi, Hossein, McCanuel, John, Best, Robert, Glozzy, Richard, Hughes, Alan
• Primary Examiner(s): Chan, Wing F
• Assistant Examiner(s): Yohannes, Tesfay
• Application Number:
  US11/311,438
• Time in Patent Office: 1,701 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224, 709/225, 709/226
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/16 using machine learning or artificial intelligence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0882 Utilisation of link capacity

Abstract

A method includes issuing a retrieval instruction, such as a database query, to retrieve from a database system a datum associated with a network circuit. Upon receiving the datum from the database system, it is determined, based on the datum received, whether the network circuit is stranded or whether the network circuit is incurring a charge but is not generating sufficient revenue. When the network circuit is stranded, a disconnect instruction to disconnect the network circuit is issued. When the network circuit is incurring a charge but the amount of revenue generated by the network circuit is below a predetermined threshold, a termination instruction to terminate a service associated with the network circuit is issued.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

issuing a retrieval instruction to retrieve a datum associated with a network circuit from a database system;

determining whether the network circuit is stranded based on the datum retrieved from the database system, wherein the determining whether the network circuit is stranded is done automatically using a rules-based algorithm;

issuing a disconnect instruction to disconnect the network circuit when the network circuit is stranded, wherein the issuing the disconnect instruction is done automatically;

determining whether a local exchange carrier is providing a service associated with the network circuit; and

issuing automatically a termination instruction to the local exchange carrier to terminate the service associated with the network circuit when the network circuit is stranded.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the network circuit is a DS0 circuit.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising verifying that the network circuit has been disconnected when said disconnect instruction has been issued.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

verifying that the service associated with the network circuit has been terminated when the termination instruction has been issued.

5. A method, comprising:

issuing a retrieval instruction to retrieve a datum associated with a network circuit from a database system;

determining based on the datum retrieved from the database system whether the network circuit is incurring a charge, wherein the determining whether the network circuit is incurring a charge is done automatically;

determining based on the datum retrieved from the database system an amount of revenue generated by the network circuit, wherein the determining the amount of revenue generated by the network circuit is done automatically; and

issuing a termination instruction to a local exchange carrier to terminate a service associated with the network circuit when the network circuit is incurring a charge from the local exchange carrier and when the amount of revenue generated by the network circuit is below a predetermined threshold.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the network circuit is a DS0 circuit.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the issuing the termination instruction is done automatically.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising verifying that the service associated with the network circuit has been terminated when the termination instruction has been issued.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising issuing a disconnect instruction to disconnect the network circuit when the network circuit is incurring said charge and when the amount of revenue generated by the network circuit is below said predetermined threshold.

10. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

issuing automatically a disconnect instruction to disconnect the network circuit when the network circuit is incurring said charge and when the amount of revenue generated by the network circuit is below said predetermined threshold; and

verifying that the network circuit has been disconnected when said disconnect instruction has been issued.

11. A processor-readable non-transitory medium storing code representing instructions to cause a processor to perform a process, the code comprising code to:

issue a retrieval instruction to retrieve from a database system a datum associated with a DS0 circuit within a network;

determine whether the DS0 circuit is stranded based on the datum retrieved from the database system, and is done automatically using a rules-based algorithm;

produce automatically a report when the DS0 circuit is stranded;

issue automatically a disconnect instruction to disconnect the DS0 circuit when the DS0 circuit is determined to be stranded;

determine whether a local exchange carrier is providing a service associated with the DS0 circuit; and

issue automatically a termination instruction to the local exchange carrier to terminate the service associated with the DS0 circuit when the DS0 circuit is stranded.

12. The processor-readable non-transitory medium of claim 11, further comprising code to:

verify that the DS0 circuit has been disconnected when said disconnect instruction has been issued.

13. The processor-readable non-transitory medium of claim 11, further comprising code to:

verify that the service associated with the DS0 circuit has been terminated when the termination instruction has been issued.