Method and system for processing communications orders

• US 7,917,396 B1
• Filed: 02/15/2005
• Issued: 03/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CenturyLink Intellectual Property LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Embarq Holdings Company LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Metz, George E., McLellan, Lisa K., Drake, Peter J.
• Primary Examiner(s): FADOK, MARK A
• Application Number:
  US11/058,470
• Time in Patent Office: 2,233 Days
• Field of Search: 379/119, 705/26, 705/27, 709/203, 709/238, 370/502, 370/353
• US Class Current: 725/106
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0635 Processing of requisition or of purchase orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

A method, system, and medium are provided for processing customer orders associated with providing telephony services via a telecommunications network and with services provided via a cable network. In one embodiment, the method includes providing a service-order-entry (SOE) system associated with a set of legacy components, the SOE system being operable to receive a first type of customer order that is associated with providing services via a telecommunications network, the telecommunications network not including a cable television (CATV) network; supplementing the SOE system with a secondary order-reception system operable to receive a second type of customer order that is associated with providing telephony services over a CATV network and further operable to receive the second type of customer order without substantially modifying the legacy components; receiving the second type of customer order; and fulfilling the second type of customer order without substantially modifying the legacy components.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for a telecommunications carrier having a legacy order-processing system to process customer orders associated with providing telephony services via a cable TV (CATV) network, the method comprising:

receiving an indication for a request to provide or modify a voice-over-protocol telephony service;

determining whether the order is associated with service offerings to be provided in connection with the CATV network or service offerings to be provided in connection with a telecommunications network associated with the legacy order-processing system;

validating fields of the request to determine if there are any issues, errors, or reasons the request is rejected or unable to be completed;

parsing the request and data associated with the request for storage in a database associated with the CATV network or the telecommunications network associated with the legacy order-processing system in response to a category of the request;

directing the order to a supplementary processing system that is coupled to the legacy order-processing system, thereby enabling the order to be received while keeping in place the legacy order-processing system, to satisfy the order in response to determining that the order is associated with service offerings to be provided in connection with the CATV network; and

directing the order to legacy components to satisfy the order in response to determining that the order is associated with service offerings to be provided in connection with a telecommunications network associated with the legacy order-processing system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the voice-over-protocol telephone service includes:

a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service;

a Voice over Asynchronous Transfer Mode (VoATM) service;

or

a combination thereof.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether the order is associated with offerings to be provided in connection with the CATV network includes determining whether the order will be billed to an end user by a party other that the telecommunications carrier.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the supplementary processing system includes a data structure to receive the directed order.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein directing the order to a supplementary processing system includes denoting within the legacy system that the order is to be satisfied in connection with the supplementary processing system.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the supplementary processing system is operable to facilitate the adding of new geographic areas.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the supplementary processing system is further operable to define new National Emergency Number Association-2 (NENA-2) file-type filters.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein satisfying the order includes storing order information associated with the directed order.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein satisfying the order further comprises logging the order information for historical recollection.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

reporting issues in response to determining there are issues, errors, or reasons the request is rejected or unable to be completed; and

sending an order confirmation in response to determining there are no issues, errors, or reasons the request is rejected or unable to be completed.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the parsing further comprises:

inserting the data into fields of the associated database.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the associated databases is associated with a queue.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein fields of the request for the CATV network include alpha-numeric characters, and wherein fields of the request for the telecommunications network include a numeric format only.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein requests for the CATV network are received through an E-bonded interface.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

rejecting the order in response to a due date being invalid or an address of a customer being outside a service footprint.