Patent Application
20090214011
Traditional wireline telephone services (i.e., telephones connected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN)) have been and are, in most cases, still provided by local telecommunications service providers. As alternative telecommunications services have become more prevalent in recent years, consumers have opted to switch to the alternative telecommunication services as their primary telecommunication services and, in many cases, drop or simply do not install wireline telephone services at their residences. Alternative telecommunication services include mobile telephone services and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) telephone services, for example.
While these alternative telecommunication services suffice to provide reliable communications for users, one problem that occurs for alternative telecommunication services is power outages. Power outages mostly occur (i) in the western part of the United States during “blackouts” and “rolling brown outs” when energy supply is low and demand is high, and (ii) in the southeastern United States from hurricane damage. Other weather and non-weather events, such as floods, tornadoes, thunderstorms, and emergency situations, can cause power outages. As understood, the PSTN or wireline telephone services may enable wireline telephones to operate during power outages.
Unlike wireline telecommunications services, power outages affect alternative telecommunications by causing the telephones (e.g., mobile telephones, handsets and computers operating soft phones) to be limited to battery power. In the event that a power outage lasts for even a few hours, most devices of alternative telecommunications services run out of battery power, thereby leaving users without telephone services.
While users who opt for alternative telecommunications services may face challenges in the event of power outages, local telecommunications service providers that lose customers due to customers choosing alternative telecommunications services also lose the ability to market products and services to those customers and residences after a certain period of time (i.e., “win back” period of time), as provided by laws and regulations of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Furthermore, after a customer cancels wireline telephone service, the local telecommunications service provider typically physically disables the wireline telephone line to reduce overhead and expenses for maintenance. In some cases, “warm lines” are maintained at residences and paid by the service provider in hopes of the former or new customer at the residence wanting to turn wireline telephone service back on. However, warm line telephone service is not cost effective for the local telecommunications service provider, so is typically not a viable option. For at least the foregoing reasons, the local telecommunications service providers desire maintaining wireline telecommunications services to residences.
To overcome the problems of customers canceling or not activating wireline telephone services, thereby causing users to lose telephone service during power outages when battery power stops and local telecommunications service providers to lose the ability to market to customers at their residences, the principles of the present invention provide for local telecommunications service providers to offer “emergency” wireline telephone services to customers at residences. The emergency wireline telephone services allow customers to have access to reliable telephone services in the event of a power outage and local telecommunications service providers to continue marketing to the customers. The emergency telephone services may be offered by maintaining wireline telephone services to a residence and allowing customers to other parties after entering an access code prior to dialing and 911 and an operator without having to enter an access code. In one embodiment, the customers may be billed strictly on a per-usage basis. Alternatively, the customer may be billed a minimal amount to maintain the phone service in addition to the per-usage basis. By having the customer dial an access code prior to dialing other parties, access to the emergency wireline telephone service may be limited by the subscriber, so that children and guests do not cause a subscriber's bill to be unexpectedly high, as each call may cost a premium (e.g., $0.99 or more).
One embodiment of a process for providing wireline telephone services may include providing wireline telephone services to a residence to enable a user to place telephone calls. In response to receiving an access code, the user may be enabled to place telephone calls. The user may be billed for placing the telephone calls on a per-usage basis.
Illustrative embodiments of the present invention are described in detail below with reference to the attached drawing figures, which are incorporated by reference herein and wherein:
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In addition to wireline telephone services, the residences 102 may also have telecommunications access to one or more mobile telephone networks 108 that are operated by mobile telephone service providers 110 and cable/internet networks 112 over which VoIP service providers 114 provide telecommunications services. Because consumers at the residences 102 have these different telecommunications services options, the consumers tend to select a telecommunications service that is both cost effective and convenient. Because mobile telephones and VoIP telephones have become commonplace and well understood to be cost effective and convenient for both home and out-of-home usage, consumers at residences have in many cases departed from traditional home wireline telephone services. In accordance with the principles of the present invention, wireline telephone services may be provided to residences 102 by providing no or low monthly service fee and premium fees on a per-usage basis.
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In operation, the server 202 may monitor calls being placed by users at the residences 102. In response to receiving a calling request being placed by a user at one of the residences, the processing unit 204 may receive notification that a call is being placed and assign a telephone number from the telephone number pool stored in one of the repositories 214. In addition, the processing unit 204 may determine that an access code has been entered by the user and authorize the user to place a call via the PSTN 106 in response to determining that the access code is valid. Because the telephone line is an emergency telephone line, the user may place a telephone call to a public safety answering point (PSAP) using a “911” telephone number or call an operator for information. However, to place a telephone call to another user on the PSTN 106 or other telecommunications network, the user, in one embodiment, is to dial an access code (e.g., “*0714”) prior to dialing the telephone number. The access code may be established by the telecommunications service provider or by the user to restrict access to the wireline telephone line so as to limit unauthorized callers to place calls from the wireline telephone line. The access code may be established by a user using an interactive voice response (IVR) system, interactive response system, call to an operator at the local telephone service provider, interactive website, or any other means for establishing an access code.
The telephone number pool, or DN pool, may be used to establish a telephone number for a caller rather than maintaining a telephone number for the wireline telephone service so as to minimize the number of telephone numbers that are reserved by the local telecommunications service provider. It should be understood that an emergency telephone call being placed by a user at a residence with emergency telephone service may have a physical address communicated to an operator at a PSAP as the circuit, and not the telephone number, is used to look up the physical address of the caller. Should the user place an emergency telephone call, the server 202 may maintain the temporary telephone number with the wireline telephone line for a certain period of time (e.g., 24 hours) in case a call to that telephone line is to be made by authorities. In one embodiment, should a user desire to maintain his or her telephone number, rather than allowing the telephone number to be assigned “on-the-fly,” then the user may pay an extra fee (e.g., $2.00 per month) to the local telecommunications service provider.
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In an alternative scenario, if the customer 402 cancels wireline telephone services at step 418, then the local telecommunication service provider 404 may offer the emergency wireline telephone services at step 420. Should the customer 402 accept the emergency wireline telephone services offer at step 422, then the local telecommunication service provider 404 may change billing and add the customer information to cause a telephone number to be provided to the customer 402 when placing a call using the emergency telephone services. At step 426, the customer 402 may be billed in accordance with the emergency telephone services and marketing may continue by the local telecommunication service provider 404 to the customer 402. Although described as a local telecommunication service provider, it should be understood that wireline telephone services may be provided by a non-local telecommunication service provider.
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The previous detailed description is of a small number of embodiments for implementing the invention and is not intended to be limiting in scope. One of skill in this art will immediately envisage the methods and variations used to implement this invention in other areas than those described in detail. The following claims set forth a number of the embodiments of the invention disclosed with greater particularity.
