Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q20/00—Payment architectures, schemes or protocols
  • G06Q20/08—Payment architectures
  • G06Q20/16—Payments settled via telecommunication systems
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q20/00—Payment architectures, schemes or protocols
  • G06Q20/08—Payment architectures
  • G06Q20/12—Payment architectures specially adapted for electronic shopping systems
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M15/00—Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
  • H04M15/68—Payment of value-added services
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M3/00—Automatic or semi-automatic exchanges
  • H04M3/42—Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers
  • H04M3/487—Arrangements for providing information services, e.g. recorded voice services or time announcements
  • H04M3/493—Interactive information services, e.g. directory enquiries ; Arrangements therefor, e.g. interactive voice response [IVR] systems or voice portals
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
  • H04W4/00—Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
  • H04W4/24—Accounting or billing
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M15/00—Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M2203/00—Aspects of automatic or semi-automatic exchanges
  • H04M2203/10—Aspects of automatic or semi-automatic exchanges related to the purpose or context of the telephonic communication
  • H04M2203/1058—Shopping and product ordering
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M2215/00—Metering arrangements; Time controlling arrangements; Time indicating arrangements
  • H04M2215/01—Details of billing arrangements
  • H04M2215/0196—Payment of value-added services, mainly when their charges are added on the telephone bill, e.g. payment of non-telecom services, e-commerce, on-line banking
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M2215/00—Metering arrangements; Time controlling arrangements; Time indicating arrangements
  • H04M2215/20—Technology dependant metering
  • H04M2215/2026—Wireless network, e.g. GSM, PCS, TACS
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M2215/00—Metering arrangements; Time controlling arrangements; Time indicating arrangements
  • H04M2215/32—Involving wireless systems

Definitions

• the invention relates to a method according to the preamble of claim 1.
• This type of method is conventionally used for implementing the offering and purchasing of products and services with the help of telephone/telecom network facilities.
• the charge may be a one-time charge (e.g., FIM/call) or based on ticks (e.g., FIM/min).
• FIM/call a one-time charge
• ticks e.g., FIM/min
• a problem of the prior-art technique is that its billing process needs manual work and in most cases is complicated as well as poor in its cost-efficiency when purchasing a product or service occurs by way of calling a normal directory number and, on the other hand, is hampered by an extremely inflexible billing procedure in regard to the caller as well as to the product or service to be vended and, furthermore, payment for a plurality of products or services during a single call is practically impossible when the call is placed to a value-added service number.
• the product or service provider bills the caller afterwards by the conventional billing methods of telephone service transactions.
• the conventional billing technique applied to calls placed to value-added service numbers does not allow during the call a cancellation of a product or service already selected into the shopping cart so that no billable charging ticks would be sent to the caller. This invokes situations in which manual procedures must be launched to compensate the caller for costs incurred from the call to said value-added service number.
• today's billing routines of value-added calls do not allow the provider to directly and flexibly perform the pricing of products and services. Neither has the caller any possibility of analyzing individual purchasing transactions, products and services purchased and their individual prices in his telephone bill, since value-added calls generally appear in the bill bunched on single grand total rows according to their value-added communications call prefixes.
• the goal of the invention is achieved by during a single call offering the client a facility of selecting with the help of a voice-message menu a plurality of differently priced services or products that are billed to the client in conjunction with his telephone bill, for instance.
• the invention provides significant benefits.
• billing can be arranged in a flexible manner so that the price to be charged for vended products and services is no more dependent on, e.g., the duration of the call or the number of ticks sent during the call.
• the caller buyer
• the time used for selecting items can be charged per a local call flat rate or, alternatively, a small extra fee may be added.
• the billing ticket is written only after the caller confirms the shopping list. Still alternatively, the caller may cancel all items selected, whereby the caller will not be billed by any amount in regard to products and services.
• the billing method according to the invention is cost- efficient because the data of the purchasing transaction is transferred along with the call ticket to the operator's billing system, wherefrom the price of purchased items is printed on the telephone bill form.
• the service provider need not invoice the vended products and services separately.
• the provider will receive information on each confirmed purchasing transaction sent directly onto his PC or GSM mobile phone.
• the invention also offers the benefit of allowing an easy printout of itemized list of purchases to be made on the telephone bill form.
• the list of purchases is itemized by time of purchasing transaction, purchased products and services, quantities thereof, item prices and grand totals.
• the detailed bill may be complemented with additional information about the available products and services and the provider thereof.
• the voice message menu concept of the method according to the invention can also improve the efficiency of the provider's sales promotion by way of giving new callers basic information on the available products and services, their prices, etc.
• the voice message menu concept facilitates a real time connection to the provider at any time for checking, e.g., the delivery time and method or other more specific product properties.
• the provider can always obtain information on his computer or GSM mobile phone on the products or services that are picked at any time in the caller's shopping cart before the call will be forwarded to the provider.
• the provider can easily and flexibly maintain his product and service selection and their pricing information etc. by entering the updates in the system data base DB and the voice message menu of the system IP/INR device.
• FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the method according to the invention for ordering and billing products and services in one possible system environment
• FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the method according to the invention for maintaining the product and pricing data base.
• the system environment shown therein comprises a subscriber connection 101 from which a call is placed to the service number, an SSP exchange
• the telephone system as a whole comprises a large number of connections similar to subscriber connection 101 and from these, a number of simultaneous calls may be placed to the service number while, for the sake of greater clarity, only one subscriber connection calling the service number is shown in the diagram.
• a plurality of product/service providers whereby also several provider systems, each comprised of a provider-owned PC 106, wireline connection 107 and GSM mobile phone 108, may be included in the overall system not being limited by diagram wherein only one of each component is shown for clarity.
• the invention is next described with reference to FIG. 1, wherein the buyer (caller) 101 of a product or service calls a value-added number and the call is forwarded to the nearest SSP (Service Switching Point) 102, wherefrom a request is sent to an SCP (Service Control Point ) call control data base 103.
• SSP Service Switching Point
• SCP Service Control Point
• the SCP call control data base 103 requests a voice response device IP/IVR 105 to play the buyer a voice message menu linked to said value-added service number.
• the menu tells the buyer 101 the different product and service items, their prices and when necessary, a short product description.
• the voice message menu may also contain other information on the vended products and services with an outline of the service provider company.
• the buyer 101 is given the possibility of selecting one or more products or services with the help of the voice message menu.
• the real time status of the buyer's shopping cart is stored in the SCP call control data base 103.
• the buyer 101 decides to check the final status of his shopping cart, information will be sent him on the content of the shopping cart, price of each product and service selected into the cart and the grand total of the shopping cart bill.
• the buyer 101 may also choose to talk with the product/service provider before closing his purchase order.
• Information on the content of the buyer's shopping cart is transferred via the data base DB 104 either to the product/service provider's data base or via a GSM data connection or short messages to the provider's GSM mobile phone 108.
• the provider may alternatively receive a notice about the caller's wish to talk with the provider prior to selecting items into his shopping cart.
• the caller 101 can be forwarded to a connection 107 defined by the product/service provider, wherein the caller may submit additional information (e.g., mailing data) required for proper delivery of the selected product or service.
• the provider can come to terms with the buyer on the availability and suitability of his products and services.
• the caller 101 may also request further information on the provider's products and services and their availability, whereupon the caller can return to the voice response menu of products/services.
• the connection between the caller and the provider is released and the caller is reconnected to the voice response menu.
• he can acknowledge the selected content of his shopping cart ready for billing, make changes thereto, listen to more information the available products and services, decide to ask for more information from the provider or even terminate the call.
• the caller 101 When the caller 101 acknowledges the shopping cart content ready for billing, he will receive a voice message about the grand total of the shopping cart content and the data of the payment transaction is transferred via the SCP call control data base 103 and the data base DB 104 to the service provider as a confirmation of the purchase transaction.
• the SCP call control data base 103 requests the SSP exchange 102 to write a billing ticket on the payment of the shopping cart contents.
• the billing ticket contains the product/service codes purchased from said provider, together with the quantities of purchased items.
• a plurality of billing tickets can be written so that the product/service codes and order quantities of all the products and services selected into the shopping cart can be written on the tickets.
• the billing tickets are next transferred along with the transfer of normal call charge ticket data to the system operator's billing system 109 that links the product/service codes and order quantities of products and services to be billed with the detailed product data and price information stored in the billing system at the instant of the caller's purchase transaction.
• the telephone bill 110 to be sent to the buyer (caller) 101 contains a detailed list of products and prices ordered by the buyer. Additionally, the bill 110 may be complemented with service provider's contact data, delivery terms or other information of interest to the buyer.
• the product or service provider maintains his product/service catalog and price list in the data base DB 104.
• This data base also contains up-to-date information on one or more target numbers of each service number to which an incoming call shall be forwarded in the case that the buyer wishes to talk with the provider.
• the provider can update his information data base in real time via information networks (e.g., using his PC 106) or, alternatively, by means of a control menu accessible by the touch- tone codes of the voice response device.
• Information on provider's product/service codes and item specifications, as well as other data to be printed on the buyers' telephone bills is transferred from the data base DB 104 to the operator's billing system.
• the product/service provider can himself update his voice message menu in the voice response device IP/INR 105. Herein, he can directly record the voice messages of menus, product specifications and other similar information.
• a call invoking vending of products and services over a telephone network comprises the following steps of the method:
• Caller 101 first places a call to a value-added service number, whereupon the call is routed to the nearest SSP exchange 102.
• the SSP exchange 102 sends a request to an SCP call control data base 103.
• the SCP call control data base 103 identifies the call to be directed to a voice message product menu and sends a request to a data base DB 104, wherein the data of the service provider's voice message product menu is kept stored. Based on the stored data, the SCP call control data base 103 retrieves the up-to-date information, among others, on proper voice message prompts, product/service codes, prices, etc.
• SCP call control data base 103 requests IP device 105 to play the caller the voice message product menu associated with the called service number.
• the caller can navigate in the menu and add/remove products or services to be picked into his shopping cart. If the caller wishes to contact the product/service producer, this is possible by a proper selection in the menu.
• SCP call control data base 103 recognizes the need to connect the caller to the provider's telephone number and to send the provider information on the up-to-date status of the caller's shopping cart.
• SCP call control data base 103 sends the information on the up-to-date status of the caller's shopping cart via data base DB either to ...
• GSM mobile phone 108 either as GSM data or SMS text message.
• SCP call control data base 103 requests SSP exchange 102 to connect the caller to the provider's telephone number which may be either a wireline connection 107 or ...
• the provider hangs up and SSP exchange 102 returns the call control back to the SCP call control data base 103.
• the caller is connected back to IP device 105, wherein he may either acknowledge the payment of the selected content of his shopping cart, make changes therein, request for reconnection to the provider's telephone number or hang up. In the latter case, no billing for the content of the shopping cart will be billed.
• SCP call control data base 103 sends the information on the caller's shopping cart status and payment acknowledge via data base DB 104 either to ...
• GSM mobile phone 108 either as GSM data or SMS text message.
• SCP call control data base 103 requests SSP exchange 102 to write a ticket with data identifying the service provider and the codes of purchased products/services. 15a.
• the billing tickets are passed through the operator's conventional postprocessing of tickets to the billing system 109.
• Billing system 109 links billing ticket data (i.e., product and service codes of purchased products and services with their ordered quantities) with product specifications and price information stored in the billing system that were valid at the instant of purchase. Based thereon, the buyer (caller) can see in his telephone bill 110 a detailed itemization of his purchase as to the ordered products and their prices. Further, it is possible to print on the bill form the service provider's contact data, delivery terms or other information of interest to the buyer.
• billing ticket data i.e., product and service codes of purchased products and services with their ordered quantities
• FIG. 2 are indicated by arrows the method steps for maintaining the product and pricing data base, wherein the block symbols represent means associated with said steps.
• the system environment outlined in FIG. 2 comprises a data base 104, an IP/IVR device 105, a product/service provider's computer PC 106, a wireline connection 107 and a GSM mobile phone 108, both owned by the product/service provider, and a billing server 109.
• the maintenance of product and service data in a system for vending of products and services over a telephone network in the manner described in FIG. 1 above comprises the following steps:
• Service provider maintains the product and service data of his products and services by making updates in a data base DB 104. This is accomplished in real time either over information networks using, e.g., the provider's PC 106 as a terminal or, alternatively, ...
• the product or service provider updates his voice message product menu stored in automatic voice response device IP/IVR 105. This is accomplished by calling the voice response device 105 and then making the required changes in the stored voice messages of the menus, specifications of products and other voice information to be submitted to a caller. However, the recording of product/service price information cannot be updated over this path as they are played as system voice announcements via the SCP call control data base (103 in FIG. 1).
• the above-described operation can be carried out from the provider's GSM mobile telephone 108.
• WAP Wireless Application Protocol
• WAP Wireless Application Protocol
• the WAP concept will facilitate the integration of WWW browsers in mobile terminals so that the narrow bandwidth of the radio transmission path will be utilized more effectively.
• WAP will become fully integrated with the Internet so that all the components of the Internet architecture will have a counterpart in the WAP.
• the HMTL and Java script conventions of the Internet are respectively available in the WAP as the WML (Wireless Markup Language) and WML scripts.
• WML Wireless Markup Language
• WML Wireless Markup Language
• the provider in practice does not find himself reading a short message or using the GSM data reception facilities, but rather operates on the WAP browser of his mobile terminal.
• the provider wishes to receive information over his WAP browser on the shopping cart status of buyers and related payments, he can launch his own WWW application through his WAP compatible mobile terminal.
• the basic rule is that the status of the buyer's shopping cart will be shown on the provider's WAP browser not earlier than when the caller wishes to contact the provider for information on the product availability or other product data. Respectively, confirmed purchase transactions will be always indicated on the service provider's browser.
• the above-described steps to be performed by the provider for updating the product and price specifications of his products and services over information networks and using a PC may as well be carried out with the help of the provider's mobile terminal and WAP browser.
• the update routines (item 1 of FIG. 2) of data base DB 104 based on information networks will remain valid, the provider does not need a PC, but rather, can use the WAP browser of his mobile terminal for accessing the data base DB 104 over suitable WAP-to-Internet gateways.
• Another essential modification of the method comprises transferring all the billing information (i.e., products, quantities thereof, product specifications, general information on products and provider, etc.) from the provider's data base DB 104 first to SCP 103, therefrom to the ticketing routine of SCP 102 and transparently therefrom onto the telephone bill form 110 as indicated by arrow 15b in FIG. 1.
• billing information i.e., products, quantities thereof, product specifications, general information on products and provider, etc.
• the provider's data base DB 104 would not update the billing server 109 with the basic product and provider information (billing server), but instead all the itemized data and information to be printed on the telephone bill form would come via the tickets written by SCP 102. Then, the billing system 109 would only need to manage the printing of the telephone bill.
• This functionality of the invention makes it possible to format the telephone bill in an extremely flexible manner. Examples of such features are extra text lines, graphics, pictures, alphanumeric characters, bar codes, etc.
• One but not a limiting application is to perform said formatting of the billing data and other information for printing on the telephone bill form is to encode the information ASCII-8 format characters, wherefrom the text lines of desired content in regard to each purchase transaction are printed on the telephone bill form.

Landscapes

• Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Accounting & Taxation (AREA)
• Signal Processing (AREA)
• Strategic Management (AREA)
• Finance (AREA)
• Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Business, Economics & Management (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
• Management, Administration, Business Operations System, And Electronic Commerce (AREA)
• Telephonic Communication Services (AREA)
• Control Of Vending Devices And Auxiliary Devices For Vending Devices (AREA)
• Financial Or Insurance-Related Operations Such As Payment And Settlement (AREA)

Priority Applications (5)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (2)

Family

ID=8553026

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (7)

Cited By (4)

Citations (4)

• 1998
  • 1998-12-02 FI FI982607A patent/FI108188B/fi not_active IP Right Cessation
• 1999
  • 1999-12-02 WO PCT/FI1999/001002 patent/WO2000036810A2/en not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 1999-12-02 AU AU15642/00A patent/AU1564200A/en not_active Abandoned
  • 1999-12-02 CA CA002352959A patent/CA2352959A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 1999-12-02 EP EP99958228A patent/EP1135924A2/en not_active Withdrawn
  • 1999-12-02 EE EEP200100297A patent/EE200100297A/et unknown
• 2001
  • 2001-05-15 NO NO20012397A patent/NO20012397L/no not_active Application Discontinuation

Patent Citations (4)

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