RU2638538C2 - Method of interactive predictive tariffication of outgoing call (versions) - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: information technology.

SUBSTANCE: number of the dialed characters of the phone number of the called subscriber is counted in the telephone when every next character of the dialed telephone number is entered, the entered number is normalized when the number of dialed characters reaches the number 3 and the outbound request is formed by the telephone to determine the calling tariff of the dialed telephone number. The generated request is transmitted to the request processing server intended for processing requests from the subscriber terminals, the dialed number is allocated from the request received by the request processing server, and the tariff value corresponding to the country code in the dialed telephone number is determined. Then, a response is formed to the telephone containing the detemined tariff value, the generated response is sent to the phone and the tariff value is displayed from the received response on the phone display. Alternatively, after normalizing the entered number, the call tariff value corresponding to the country code in the dialed telephone number is found in the phone in which call tariff values are updated from the server upon request or proactively.

EFFECT: expanded arsenal of technical means of predictive tariffication, reduced load on telephone networks.

11 cl

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to telephony, and more particularly to methods for interactive predictive charging of a call originating from a telephone.

State of the art

Billing from a telephone is currently being charged in a variety of ways.

RF patent No. 2458480 (published on 08/10/2012) discloses a method for location-dependent and (or) distance-dependent charging of communication services in a mobile communication network, when the payment rate depends on which subscriber area the called subscriber is in.

In US patent No. 9143609 (publ. 09/22/2015) a method for managing and tracking digital communications calls is proposed, in which the payment is calculated by specialized software after making a call.

Japanese application No. 2000-032174 (published on January 28, 2000) provides a method of informing the cost of a call in which the cost of a call is requested during a call and calculated directly on the phone.

In all these and many other analogs, billing is carried out either upon completion of a telephone connection, or after indicating the area where the called subscriber is located, while in many cases the calling subscriber would simply refuse the call if he immediately knew the corresponding tariff. As a result, telephone networks are overloaded with calls that might not have taken place, and subscribers have to remember the cost of calls in various directions.

Disclosure of invention

In this regard, the objective of the present invention is to develop such a charging method that would expand the arsenal of technical means, allowing to reduce the load on telephone networks and increasing the usability for subscribers.

To solve this problem and achieve the indicated technical result, the first object of the present invention proposes a method for interactive predictive charging of a call originating from a telephone, which consists in counting in the telephone the number of dialed characters of the called subscriber’s telephone number when each successive character of the dialed telephone number is entered; normalize the entered number when the counted number of characters reached the number 3; form the telephone an outgoing request to determine the call rate of the dialed telephone number; transmit the generated request to the request processing server, intended for processing requests from subscriber phones; extracting the dialed number from the request received by the request processing server; find the tariff value corresponding to the country code in the dialed telephone number; generating a telephone response containing the found tariff value; transmit the generated response to the phone; display the tariff value from the received answer on the phone display.

A feature of the method according to the first object of the present invention is that the counting of the number of typed characters can be stopped when this number exceeds 15.

Another feature of the method according to the first object of the present invention is that operations, starting with normalization, can be repeated upon entering each next character of a telephone number over 3.

Another feature of the method according to the first object of the present invention is that any means of the group including: a fixed telephone terminal with a base, a fixed telephone, a mobile phone, a smartphone, a telephone application on a tablet, a personal phone application can be used as a telephone computer, phone application on a smartphone.

Another feature of the method according to the first object of the present invention is that when transmitting a request to the request processing server and (or) when transmitting the generated response to the phone, any type of connection from the group including: Internet connection, public channel, service channel, SMS message transmission channel.

To solve the same problem and achieve the same technical result, in the second object of the present invention, a method for interactive predictive charging of a call originating from a telephone is proposed, which method comprises counting in the telephone the number of dialed characters of the called number of the called subscriber upon entering each successive character of the dialed telephone number; normalize the entered number when the counted number of characters reached the number 3; find in the telephone the value of the call rate corresponding to the country code in the dialed telephone number; display the found tariff value on the phone display.

A feature of the method according to the second aspect of the present invention is that the counting of the number of typed characters can be stopped when this number exceeds 15.

Another feature of the method according to the second object of the present invention is that operations, starting with normalization, can be repeated upon entering each next character of a telephone number over 3.

Another feature of the method according to the second aspect of the present invention is that any means of the group including: a fixed telephone terminal with a base, a fixed telephone, a mobile phone, a smartphone, a telephone application on a tablet, a telephone application on a personal phone can be used as a telephone computer, phone application on a smartphone.

Another feature of the method according to the second aspect of the present invention is that they can additionally transmit from the telephone a request for updating the data used to find the tariff to a request processing server for processing requests from subscriber telephones; send a response to the phone containing the requested updated data; update data on the phone based on the received answer.

At the same time, when transferring a request to a request processing server and (or) when transmitting a response to a telephone, they can use any type of connection from the group including: Internet connection, public channel, service channel, SMS message transmission channel.

Detailed Description of Embodiments

The proposed invention can be carried out in any means known to specialists, which provides a telephone connection. This can be, for example, a stationary telephone terminal with a base on which a removable handset is installed. This can be a stationary telephone, included in a wired telephone network. This can be any wireless phone, such as a mobile phone or smartphone. The method of the present invention can be implemented using a telephone application on a tablet or a telephone application on a personal computer. Any other tool currently known to specialists or developed in the future, which allows you to make a telephone connection, can be used to implement the method of the present invention. In the following description and in the claims, all these means are combined by the term “telephone”.

To implement the method according to any of the embodiments of the present invention, a client application is installed in the telephone, which is a computer program, the functions of which are described below. Regardless of the embodiment of the present invention, this client application is designed to perform the following two functions:

1. At the moment when the user (subscriber) of this phone starts dialing the number of the called subscriber, the client application stored in the memory of this phone starts counting the number of dialed characters of the called phone number when each successive character of this phone number is entered.

2. As soon as the counted number of dialed characters reaches the number 3, the specified client application normalizes the entered number. This normalization is as follows.

According to the rules of the International Telecommunication Union, each telephone number is built according to standard rules. At the beginning of the number is indicated the country code, consisting of three characters (digits). Two or three numbers follow, representing the operator code and / or geographic region. After that, the numbers of the phone number go directly.

The numbers of the country code and the operator code and / or geographical region directly affect the connection tariff for a particular phone. But, on the other hand, some codes may have the same tariffs, while tariffs for codes of different operators or different geographical regions may differ. That is why the dialed number is normalized, i.e. its reduction to the corresponding representation suitable for recognition by both call switching equipment and the charging system.

For example, in the case of dialing into a Russian number at the MTS office in Moscow (499 709 01 11), depending on the telephone used, the dialed sequence of characters may look like:

8 499 709 01 11

+7 499 709 01 11

007 499 709 01 11

However, the sequence of characters +7 499 will be sent to the hardware switch ...

For dialing to a foreign number, for example, to Switzerland to the number +41 22 346 84 26, the sequence of character set may look like:

8 10 41 22 346 84 26

+41 22 346 84 26

0041 22 346 84 26

The sequence 0041 will go to the switch ...

But to determine the tariff, all numbers will be processed (normalized) by the client application differently: in the first case, the country code will correspond to three characters 007, and in the second case - 041. This corresponds exactly to the international standard E.164 introduced by the International Telecommunication Union. The remaining codes (operators or geographical areas) are added without change.

Further, the operations of the embodiments of the present invention are different. In the first case, after normalization, the client application in the phone from which the called subscriber’s number is dialed forms an outgoing request to determine the call rate of the dialed number. This generated request from the telephone, from which the called subscriber’s number is dialed, is transmitted to the request processing server, designed to process requests from client applications. Such a server may have any implementation known to those skilled in the art that provides for the implementation of the following functions.

Having accepted the specified request, the normalized dialed number is extracted from this request in the request processing server. Using this number, the request processing server finds the value of the tariff that corresponds to the normalized country code in the dialed number. After that, the response processing server generates a response to the telephone from which the request was received, and this response contains the found tariff value. This response is transmitted to the specified phone, on the display of which, after receiving the answer, the tariff value is displayed. Such a display can be carried out directly on the display of the telephone or of the device into which the client application is entered. In the simplest case, the tariff can be displayed in the mobile phone through a space after the number being dialed. In the smartphone or in the mobile application, a certain place on the screen can be allocated for this.

In a second embodiment of the present invention, tariffs in the form of a table or in a different representation can be entered directly into the telephone memory. At the same time, the client application of this phone can periodically or randomly send a request to update the data used to find the tariff to the request processing server. In response to this request, the data processing server transmits a response to the telephone containing the requested updated data, which is entered into the client application on the telephone. In principle, a request processing server can send such updated data even without a request, for example, periodically or when the tariff changes.

In this embodiment, after counting the dialed characters and normalizing the entered number, the client application finds the call rate of the dialed number corresponding to the country code in the dialed number and displays the found tariff value on the telephone display. Such a mapping is carried out in the same way as in the first embodiment.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that for both embodiments, a normalized number containing three characters does not always allow determining a tariff, which may depend on various factors, for example, such as allocation of a range of numbers for certain services, or availability of tariffs to specify a tariff, etc. . In this case, operations, starting with normalization, are repeated when each successive character of the telephone number is entered above 3. If the tariff determination is not carried out further, then the count of the number of dialed characters is stopped when the number exceeds 15.

It should be noted that in the above example, the country code is only one of the possible types of dialed characters. In addition to the country code, it can be codes of a region or a geographical area, codes of a network, operator, service, or any combination of the above.

It can also be noted that the transfer of the request to the request processing server and / or the transmission of the generated response to the telephone can be carried out by any type of connection. For example, it can be an Internet connection, a public channel, a service channel, an SMS message transmission channel, or any other connection, both known to specialists and newly developed.

Thus, due to the fact that the tariff is determined immediately in the process of dialing the called number, the convenience of use increases when the subscriber does not need to remember or even know the tariffs of certain connections or look for them, say, on the provider's website. On the other hand, instant determination of the tariff will allow to exclude those connections that otherwise would have to be made due to the subscriber’s ignorance of the tariff. As a result, the present invention expands the arsenal of technical means and can reduce the load on telephone networks.

Claims (28)

1. A method for interactive predictive charging of an outgoing call from a telephone, which is that: - count in the said phone the number of dialed characters of the telephone number of the called subscriber upon entering each next character of the dialed telephone number; - normalize the entered number when the counted number of characters reaches the number 3; - form an outgoing call by said telephone to determine a call rate of said dialed telephone number; - transmit the generated request to the request processing server, designed to process requests received from subscriber phones; - extracting said dialed number from a request received by said request processing server; - find the value of the said tariff corresponding to the country code in the said dialed telephone number; - form a response to said telephone containing said found tariff value; - transmit the generated response to said phone; - display the value of the tariff from the received answer on the display of the mentioned phone. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said counting of the number of typed characters is stopped when the number exceeds 15. 3. The method according to p. 1, in which the operations are repeated, starting with the aforementioned normalization, by entering each next character of the said dialed telephone number over 3. 4. The method according to claim 1, in which any means of the group including: a stationary telephone terminal with a base, a fixed telephone, a mobile phone, a smartphone, a telephone application on a tablet, a telephone application on a personal computer, a telephone application is used as said telephone on a smartphone. 5. The method according to p. 1, in which, when said request is transmitted to said request processing server and (or) when said response is generated to said phone, any type of connection is used from the group including: Internet connection, public channel, service channel, SMS message transmission channel. 6. A method for interactive predictive charging of an outgoing call from a telephone, which consists in the following: - count in the said phone the number of dialed characters of the telephone number of the called subscriber upon entering each next character of the dialed telephone number; - normalize the entered number when the counted number of characters reaches the number 3; - find in the said telephone the value of the call tariff corresponding to the country code in the said dialed telephone number; - display the found tariff value on the display of the mentioned phone. 7. The method according to claim 6, wherein said counting of the number of typed characters is stopped when the number exceeds 15. 8. The method according to p. 6, in which the operations are repeated, starting with the aforementioned normalization, by entering each next character of the said dialed telephone number over 3. 9. The method according to p. 6, in which as the aforementioned phone use any means from the group including: landline telephone terminal with a base, landline telephone, mobile phone, smartphone, phone application on a tablet, phone application on a personal computer, phone application on a smartphone. 10. The method according to p. 6, in which: - transmit from the said telephone a request for updating the data used to find the tariff to the request processing server for processing requests from subscriber telephones; - transmit a response to said phone containing the requested updated data; - update said data in said phone based on the received said answer. 11. The method according to p. 10, in which, when said request is transmitted to said request processing server and (or) when said response is transferred to said phone, any type of connection from the group including: Internet connection, public channel, service channel is used channel, channel for sending SMS messages.