WO2010012630A1

WO2010012630A1 - Advertisement sponsored split charging service for pre-paid subscribers

Info

Publication number: WO2010012630A1
Application number: PCT/EP2009/059380
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ashish Agrawal; Shagufta Ali; Vivek Rao
Original assignee: Alcatel Lucent
Priority date: 2008-07-31
Filing date: 2009-07-21
Publication date: 2010-02-04

Abstract

The present invention provides a method and system for split charging in a prepaid telecommunication network using commercial advertisements. The method creates user profiles for subscribers for recording their preferences, advertisement profile for commercials to be played during or beginning calls, performs leg management to dynamically allow subscribers to choose between advertisements and phone calls and also provides discounts or bonus depending on the advertisement playing frequency. The method provides advertisements to be selected based on location, time or subscriber category so that subscribers listen to advertisements that are genuinely useful to them.

Description

Advertisement Sponsored Split Charging Service for Pre-Paid subscribers

Background of the Invention

The present invention relates to the field of value added services in telecommunications and in particular to prepaid charging services. The invention provides for an enhancement to prepaid service such that service provider can increase popularity, utility and consumption of its network resources by providing subscriber with the opportunity to make more out of their account credit. Call duration gained by subscriber without revenue drop to provider is only possible with some third party agreeing to pay for it. This is achieved by introducing sponsors who will pay partially for call and will be able to do promotional campaigns over phone call.

One of the existing solutions today is to play advertisements before call establishment such that advertisement is played for fixed duration and subscriber is provided fixed discount / bonus for listening to the advertisements. This makes use of existing mechanism of connecting subscriber to media server to play announcements / advertisements. But this system lacks flexibility of evenly distributing the advertisements through the call duration.

Summary of the Invention

The present invention provides a method and system for providing advertisement sponsored split charge prepaid service.

In one embodiment the invention provides for a method of playing short commercial advertisements for the calling and the called party before establishing the call and/or during the call. In another embodiment the invention provides a system for advertisement-sponsored split charging service in a prepaid telephony for NGN based clas-4 network.

In another embodiment the invention provides a tree based method, for selecting and playing advertisements between calls dynamically based on location of, caller, caller preference for advertisement category and day of call and time of day of the call.

In another embodiment the invention provides a method for subscriber subscription and sponsor registration.

In yet another embodiment the invention provides a system and method for highly flexible and dynamically adaptive tariff modulation in the form of bonus credit and discounts for the prepaid subscriber.

Brief description of the drawings

Figure 1 illustrates the network level interaction for the advertisement model split charging system.

Figure 2 illustrates the concept model for advertisement-sponsored split charging method.

Figure 3 illustrates the Leg management for MS connection in Pre call Advertisement

Figure 4 illustrates Leg management for MS connection in Mid call Advertisement

Figure 5 illustrates the call flow with an advertisement management service starting from originating call to selection of ad phase Figure 6 illustrates the call flow in case of subscriber choosing the pre call advertisement option.

Figure 7 illustrates the call flow during mid call advertisement for the first charging period of mid call advertisement option.

Figure 8 illustrates the call flow during mid call advertisement for the second charging period of mid call advertisement option.

Figure 9 illustrates the advertisement criterion tree, which is used to select the relevant advertisement to be played depending on the category selected by the user and the day of the week and time of day.

Detailed Description of the Drawings

Currently prepaid service is having single party charging model thus bound to charge full tariff to subscriber always. The objective of one of the embodiments of the invention is to enhance prepaid service with flexibility of split charging with third party sponsors thus helping service provider increase their Average Revenue Per Subscription (ARPS), Average Call Hold Time (ACHT) and network resource usage. Enhancement to prepaid service such that service provider can increase popularity, utility and consumption of its network resources by providing subscriber with the opportunity to make more out of their account credit. Call duration gained by subscriber without revenue drop to provider is only possible with some third party agreeing to pay for it. One of the embodiments of the present invention is a method for playing short commercial advertisements to calling party before establishing a call and/or to both the called and the calling party during the call and this embodiment is being described in detail. Figure 2 illustrates the concept model for advertisement-sponsored split charging method and is explained in call flows. This model comprises of a subscriber profile registration module (1) capable of creating user profiles. The user preferences are captured using this module. An advertisement subscriber module (2) helps to create details of commercials to be played and the category of the commercials. The media server (7) maintains the order of playing advertisements, when they need to be played and for what duration. The user gets benefits such as discounts and / or bonus on the advertisements played during his call. This is maintained by the accounts module (8).

A conceptual model of split charging using commercial advertisements in the prepaid telephony for NGN based class 4 network comprising the well defined inter-worked methods hosted on application server, for dynamic subscriber subscription, sponsor registration, advertisement management system for on-the-fly section of advertisement based on multiple criterions, advertisement playing to caller (service subscriber) and / or called subscriber and multi factored tariff modulation for advertisement bonus. The method comprises of subscriber subscription and subscriber registration, advertisement management, and advertisement playing to caller and calling party. The method also comprises of some enhanced services, which provides for announcement control and advertisement while ring back.

Another embodiment of the invention is the advertisement management system illustrated in Figure 1. The application server of the said system enables online/offline registration of a subscriber thus facilitating the systematic capturing of required inputs for phase preference between pre-establishment including option for charging period of first period or second period or both including optional inputs of advertisement intervals and maximum slots apart from choice of advertisement category. It provides the details of network level interaction for the advertisement model split charging system. This service is available to any fixed or mobile line subscriber such that its network at class 4-level supports NGN i.e. when a subscriber makes a call, the application server is triggered through media gateway controller or equivalent entity as illustrated in Figure 1 Step 1-3. Further, application server logic is applied to play advertisement as per the said logic and flow. Step 4 and 5 illustrates pre-connection advertisement followed by step 6 to 9 for voice call between end users and then post connection advertisement in step 10. The application server also enables online/offline registration thus facilitating sponsor to provide the advertisement profile details along with its own detail and payment modes. Also the system provides the subscriber with the possibility of traversing the advertisement pool by interrupting the play at any time during advertisement period for the purpose of moving to next advertisement in pool or to repeat the advertisement or to skip the advertisement playing and continue with voice call.

Yet another aspect of the system is that it provides mechanism for playing of advertisement having different priority order maintained based on popularity in different locations.

In order to start, a prepaid subscriber is required to register for ad-sponsored service through IVR (Interactive Voice Record) or web registration or manual registration with operator, thus providing information like preferred phase and selecting the preferred category of advertisement. Two types of phase preferences are provided to the subscriber during registration. One is the pre-connection advertisement and the second is the post-connection advertisements. The post connection advertisements can be either during the first charging cycle or during the second charging cycle or during both the charging cycles. The subscriber can also choose the category of advertisement to be configured.

Playing of advertisement is determined by subscriber's choice of "call-phase" (pre-call or mid-call) and period (1^st charging period or 2^πd charging period). If the call subscriber has opted for pre-connection announcement, when the caller makes a call, he will be directed to a media server (7) for listening to the advertisement. Advertisement is played till maximum allowed time for that plan or till the caller does not interrupt and stop playing of advertisement by pressing * or move on to next advertisement by pressing #. Once the advertisement is stopped, connection towards caller or called party is initiated. The prepaid service used for this method supports ESfAP (Intelligent Network Application Part) messages internally. Figure 3 illustrates leg management for MS connection in pre call advertisement. The leg management illustrated shows DSTAP like interface with service, which will be converted to SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) for external interfaces.

Similarly Figure 4 illustrates leg management for MS in Mid call advertisement. If the subscriber has opted for post connection announcement, connection between caller and called subscriber is split and caller as well as called are connected to the media server. Advertisements / Announcements to the called subscriber can be the same as that of the caller in case he is also a subscriber. If not the called subscriber can be played announcement informing about it being ad sponsored call for the caller. Also the called subscriber can be played some promotional announcement about the service itself.

In the case where the caller and the called subscriber are listening to the subscribed advertisement, the duration of the advertisement is governed by maximum allowed pulses but user can interrupt by pressing * at any time or move to the next advertisement by pressing #. This will split the connection of both caller and called subscriber to media server and merge the two subscribers.

The method also has a tariff modulation for advertisement bonus. Tariff modulation is in the form of bonus credit. The attributed credit is equivalent to call duration promotional to the total listened advertisement duration. Duration is calculated in pulses. Call pulse is determined by rate. Advertisement pulse is configurable at service level. One pulse of advertisement entitles subscriber to have bonus for defined number of call pulse (configurable).

Bonus calculation is exhaustive but flexible enough to be calculated on four criterions. They are (1) Advertisement Duration - Pulses of advertisement played before user barge out of advertisement and get into conversation, (2) Call Duration - Number of pulses after advertisement, (3) Maximum number of bonus pulses allowed: This is controlled by maximum number of advertisement pulses that can be played at any given time. This mechanism of controlling maximum bonus by control on advertisement pulses not only keep check on big bonuses but also makes it fair enough for subscriber by not wasting time in listening to un-sponsored advertisements and (4) Ratio of bonus call pulses to advertisement pulse i.e. bonus can be impacted by increasing or decreasing the number of call pulses for which bonus can be awarded on listening to one advertisement pulse.

The total call duration is compared against (calculated) maximum duration that can be sponsored. Bonus applied to the one that is lesser, by calculating the configured percentage of total cost for the bonus duration. Flexibility is also available with service provider in deciding the time of crediting bonus to subscriber's account. Based on account profile, provider can configure it from one of the following options: 1) Immediate Bonus 2) Periodic Bonus being monthly, weekly or daily 3 ) Bonus on next recharge.

This facility can be used by the service provider to strengthen the association with the subscriber by delaying the bonus credit till one of the option depending upon account profile. E.g. delaying till next recharge, the operator can enhance the chance of extended usage. Subscriber will recharge the card in order to avail the bonus.

Pre call bonus is the bonus given for advertisement played before the call is established with destination. The number of call pulse calculated, considering the above-mentioned criterion will be sponsored. Bonus will be (configurable) percentage of total call cost for the sponsored duration. Appropriate credit field is updated depending on the time of bonus credit (immediate/periodic/recharge) defined in account profile.

Post call bonus is divided into two sections as first charging period and second charging period. In case of first charging period only, advertisements are played only once and after a certain amount of configurable call pulses charged at normal charging. Certain number of pulses after advertisement in the first charging period, which are calculated considering above four criterions will be sponsored. Bonus will be percentage of total call cost for the sponsored duration. The appropriate credit field is updated depending on the time of bonus credit being immediate, periodic or recharge defined in account profile.

Whereas in case of second charging period, Advertisements can be played (configurable) repeatedly at regular (configurable) intervals starting immediately with start of second charging period. Certain number of pulses after advertisement for each interval in second charging period, calculated considering above four criterions will be sponsored. Bonus will be percentage of total call cost for the sponsored duration. In case of repeated advertisement breaks, there is (configurable) limit of number of times advertisement break can happen. Appropriate credit field is updated depending on the time of bonus credit (immediate/periodic/recharge) defined in account profile.

The advertisement management module focuses on managing the selection of subscriber relevant advertisement to be played at subscriber chosen phase. Real time selection of advertisements pool in a call is done using the Advertisement Criterion Tree (Fig 9). This tree is traversed to select set of advertisements based on call origin area, day of month/year, time of day. The operator will have flexibility to define a routing strategy with these criterions used any number of times and in any order to determine the advertisement leaf. At any point of time there can be number of leafs matching the criterion. All such leaves will be picked up where every "Advertisement Leaf will contain N number of announcements with their category and priority mentioned. For all advertisements obtained from all the matching advertisement leaves, those advertisements for which category matches one of the category opted in subscription by user, are selected to be played.

Order of advertisements within the same category is decided by priority defined for the given advertisement. Priority can be decided based on revenue earned from the sponsor. Priority setting will be a manual configuration, which the operator can do after going through his accounting reports. The appropriate advertisement to be played is decided according to the subscriber's criteria. If no advertisements are available which match the current subscriber criteria then an announcement is played informing the same. The advertisement management process flow is illustrated in Fig 5. When a call is made a connection is established to the media server for playing announcements or commercials. A welcome announcement is given together with authorization and authentication requests. If the subscriber is authenticated then the ad sponsored call option is set and the details are checked for account validation. If the subscriber has a valid account then an announcement is played asking to proceed with ad-sponsored call. The subscriber is also given an option to listen to general advertisements in such case. If not, the call proceeds with the normal prepaid service logic. The system also calculates bonus and discounts for subscribers depending on the number of advertisements played and the duration played for. The pre-call advertisement call flow is illustrated in Fig 6. In pre call advertisements when a call is initiated the account is checked for creditability. Once the creditability the maximum advertisement playing duration is calculated and the advertisement selected from the ad-pool starts. A counter is used to record the number of times the advertisement is played. The system has the duration of the advertisement and this is checked with the maximum playing time to see if the advertisement can be played again. If the duration of the advertisement is more than the maximum advertisement playing time then the system exits the media center. Another reason for disconnecting from the media center is when the user opts out of the advertisement playing and wants to continue talking. This option facilitates the subscriber to dynamically choose between sponsored call and fully charged call or to break from a sponsored call manually. Once the media center is disconnected the call continues in its normal mode where the pulse rates are calculated. The discounts and bonuses on the call are calculated based on the number of times the advertisement is played.

Advertisements can also be played during the middle of a call. This can be done during the first charging period or the second charging period depending on the user request. Also the advertisement can be played to both the caller and the called person. Figure 7 and 8 illustrates call flow for mid call advertisement during the first charging period and second charging period respectively. When a call is made, the system checks for the available credit limit for the subscriber. In case it is sufficient the call is connected to the media center. While establishing connection to the destination end the called subscriber can be connected to the media center and advertisements may be played. The called party is given an option to either listen to the advertisement or continue the call at normal charging rates. Similarly the caller is also given options to choose the advertisement playing. Also the charging can be split between the caller and the called by connecting both the subscribers to the media server. The service data module would management the advertisements played depending on time of day and user preferences.

This method provides options and configuration within a simple concept of split charging by mode of sponsored advertisements. The solution is designed to suit varying kind of subscribers, campaigners and most importantly provider has flexibility to adopt service according to the target subscriber base. Highly coupled bonus calculation helps avoiding any scope of undue benefit to anyone be it provider, subscriber or sponsor. The mid call advertisement gives scope of even distribution but at the same time, not all can easily accept it all the time as it can be irritating during some important conversation. The service ensures flexibility to subscriber to listen or skip advertisement according to need thus ensuring need based use. Selecting advertisements based on location, time and subscriber category choice is a unique effort to make advertisement genuinely useful to subscriber, which in turn will encourage more and more sponsors.

The present invention provides a highly flexible yet exhaustive tariff modulation system for bonus calculation through quadrangle creations of advertisement duration, call duration, maximum allowed bonus pulses, and the ratio of bonus pulses to advertisement pulse are credited to subscriber's account in one of the three modes being immediate credit, periodic credit or credit on recharge.

Claims

1. A method of split charging using commercial advertisements in the prepaid telecommunication network comprising the steps of creating user profiles for subscribers for recording their preferences on the application servers, creating advertisement profile for commercials to be played during or beginning of calls, performing leg management to dynamically allow subscribers to choose between advertisements and phone calls and providing discounts or bonus depending on the advertisement playing frequency.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the said telecommunications network is a prepaid telephony for NGN based class-4 network.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the service provider creates a user profile for every subscriber capturing the category of advertisement preferred and the duration of maximum advertisement playing time.

4. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the service provider creates an advertisement profile for vendors capturing the category of business and the advertisement to be played.

5. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the subscriber dynamically selects the call to be an advertisement sponsored or a full charged call.

6. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the subscriber is provided with the possibility of traversing the advertisement pool by interrupting the play at any time during advertisement period for the purpose of moving to next advertisement in pool or to repeat the advertisement or to skip the advertisement playing and continue with voice call.

7. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein an application server provides strategically aligned four level of positioning and service logic driven subscriber input facility to statically and dynamically decide on ad-sponsored call or fully charged call.

8. A system for advertisement sponsored split charging service capable of performing the method as claimed in claim 1, the said system comprising an application server (6) capable of managing user profiles, a media server (7) comprising the advertisement pool, and an accounting module (8) supported with INAP (Intelligent Network Application Part) messages for internal interface and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) messages for external interface.

9. A system as claimed in claim 8 wherein the said application server comprises a subscriber subscription module (1) capable of creating new subscriber profiles, a sponsor registration module (2) capable of creating and classifying various advertisements to be played, and a service data module (3) further comprising an announcement control unit.

10. A system as claimed in claim 8 wherein the said service data module comprises a configurable announcement control.

11. A system as claimed in claim 8 wherein the said accounting module comprises tariff-modulation logic (5).

12. A system as claimed in claim 8 wherein the media server comprises of an advertisement pool, the said advertisement pool further comprises an Advertisement Criterion Tree sorted based on call origin area, day of month/year, time of day etc.