| US 7,613,657 B2 | ||
| Reverse rating system for determining duration of a usage transaction | ||
| Andrea Cesarini, Rome (Italy) | ||
| Assigned to Accenture Global Services GmbH, Schaffhausen (Switzerland) | ||
| Filed on Nov. 30, 2005, as Appl. No. 11/289,895. | ||
| Claims priority of application No. 05425610 (EP), filed on Aug. 31, 2005; and application No. RM2005A0451 (IT), filed on Aug. 31, 2005. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2007/0124154 A1, May 31, 2007 | ||
| Int. Cl. G06Q 99/00 (2006.01); H04M 15/00 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 705—40 [379/111; 725/1] | 25 Claims |
| 1. A method for reverse rating a service use transaction, the method comprising:
receiving through a communication interface a reverse rating rate message for a telecommunications service use transaction;
processing the reverse rating message to obtain a source identifier from the reverse rating rate message;
determining whether a customer account exists for the source identifier;
when no customer account exists, initiating transmission through the communication interface of a no-account rejection response;
and
when the customer account does exist:
establishing a resource expenditure threshold for determining a maximal duration of the telecommunications service use transaction;
initiating determination of multiple partial service use durations, each for a specific time band;
maintaining a sum of the multiple partial service use durations;
monitoring a resource expenditure as the multiple partial service use durations are determined;
comparing the resource expenditure against the resource expenditure threshold;
when the resource expenditure exceeds the resource expenditure threshold, returning the sum as an approximation to the maximal
duration of the service use transaction; and,
when the resource expenditure does not exceed the resource expenditure threshold and there are no more partial service use
durations to determine, returning the sum as the maximal duration of the service use transaction.
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