Method for providing clean endpoint addresses

• US 8,416,923 B2
• Filed: 06/23/2011
• Issued: 04/09/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/23/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Twilio, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Twilio, Inc.
• Inventors: Lawson, Jeffrey G., Wolthuis, John, Cooke, Evan Mansfield
• Primary Examiner(s): SMITH, CREIGHTON H
• Application Number:
  US13/167,548
• Publication Number:
  US 20120207285A1
• Time in Patent Office: 656 Days
• Field of Search: 379/32.04
• US Class Current: 379/32.04
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/30 for subscriber's lines , for the local loop
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42

Abstract

A method for providing clean endpoints including managing a collection of endpoints; testing communication of an endpoint of the collection of endpoints; and generating a cleanliness score for the endpoint according to results of the test. The method functions to create a metric that can be used to evaluate undesired communication activity and functionality of an endpoint. The method may be implemented by any suitable platform providing endpoint addresses to clients, which may include service providers, internet-telephony platforms, or any suitable entity. The method is preferably applied to telephony endpoints used in internet-telephony applications, but may be used in any suitable application.

Claims

1. A method for providing clean endpoints comprising:

managing a collection of endpoints;

testing communication of an endpoint of the collection of endpoints, wherein testing communication of the endpoint includes monitoring incoming communication activity of the endpoint and identifying undesired communication activity patterns; and

generating a cleanliness score for the endpoint according to results of the test.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein endpoints are globally namespaced.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the endpoints are phone numbers.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein testing communication of the endpoint includes testing periodically over a duration of time.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein managing the collection of endpoints includes managing a collection of quarantined endpoints;

and further comprising releasing the endpoint for distribution according to the cleanliness score.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the collection of endpoints includes phone numbers.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein identifying undesired communication activity patterns includes determining temporal patterns of communication.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein identifying undesired communication activity patterns includes determining incoming communication origin patterns.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein identifying undesired communication activity patterns is achieved by receiving a signal from an assigned user of the endpoint that an instance of communication is undesired.

10. The method of claim 6, further comprising filtering incoming communication based on attributes of the communication and identified undesired communication activity patterns.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein a dynamic blacklist of communication origins is created from the identified undesired communication activity patterns and wherein the communication origins in the dynamic blacklist are filtered.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein filtering incoming communications further includes routing an incoming communication to a second user, wherein the second user is a previous owner.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein filtering incoming communications further includes routing an incoming communication to a second user, wherein the second user concurrently uses the endpoint for communications with attributes distinct from a first user.

14. The method of claim 6, wherein releasing the endpoint for distribution according to the cleanliness score includes making the endpoint available for assignment upon satisfying a cleanliness score threshold.

15. The method of claim 6, wherein releasing the endpoint for distribution includes correlating a price to the cleanliness score of the endpoint.

16. The method of claim 6, wherein the cleanliness score includes use-case sub-scores and wherein releasing the endpoint for distribution includes releasing the endpoint for at least one categorized use-case according to the use-case cleanliness sub-score.

17. The method of claim 6, further comprising filtering incoming communication to the released endpoint based on attributes of the incoming communication and identified undesired communication activity patterns.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein testing communication of the endpoint includes testing functionality of communication between the endpoint and a network endpoint comprising the steps of creating a test signature;

sending the test signature between a network endpoint and the endpoint; and

verifying the test signature.

19. The method of claim 5, wherein testing communication of the endpoint includes testing functionality of communication between the endpoint and a network endpoint comprising the steps of creating a test signature;

sending the test signature between a network endpoint and the endpoint; and

verifying the test signature.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the endpoints are phone numbers.

21. A method for providing clean endpoints comprising:

managing a collection of endpoints;

testing communication of an endpoint of the collection of endpoints, wherein testing communication of the endpoint includes testing functionality of communication between the endpoint and a network endpoint comprising the steps of creating a test signature;

sending the test signature between a network endpoint and the endpoint; and

verifying the test signature; and

generating a functionality score for the endpoint according to results of the test.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the endpoint is a phone number.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein testing functionality of the endpoint includes testing functionality of communication between the endpoint and a plurality of network endpoints wherein testing functionality is performed on a plurality of communication protocols.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein sending the test signature is sent from the endpoint to the network endpoint.

25. The method of claim 22, wherein sending the test signature is sent from the network endpoint to the endpoint.

26. The method of claim 22, wherein testing functionality of communication between the endpoint and a network endpoint includes generating a plurality of functionality tests configurations;

uploading the functionality test configurations to a queue on a hosted resource;

at least one device dequeuing a functionality test from the hosted resource; and

running the functionality test configuration from the at least one device.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein network, protocol, and network endpoint attributes of the at least one device are customized for a functionality test.

28. The method of claim 21, wherein testing communication of the endpoint includes monitoring incoming communication activity of the endpoint and identifying undesired communication activity patterns.