1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to the field of telecommunications. More particularly, the present invention relates to removing slamming protection from a customer's account when the customer wants to change their preferred long distance provider.
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
2. Acronyms
Ameritech Service Order Negotiation (ASON)
Billing Telephone Number (BTN)
Carrier Identification Code (CIC)
Carrier Request (CR)
Customer Account Record Exchange (CARE)
Electronic 3-Way Call (E3WC)
Extensible Markup Language (XML)
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
File Transport Protocol (FTP)
Graphical User Interface (GUI)
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS)
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Local Access and Transport Area (LATA)
Local Exchange Carrier (LEC)
Local Preferred Interexchange Carrier (LPIC)
Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS)
Preferred Interexchange Carrier (PIC)
Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)
Service Order Server Applications (SOSA)
Telephone Number (TN)
Third Party Verification (TPV)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
Working Telephone Number (WTN)
3. Background and Material Information
In the past, if a potential customer consented to a change in their long distance carrier, then the long distance carrier would contact the customer's local telephone company to provision the change. Eventually, however, certain long distance companies began contacting local telephone companies and indicating that a potential customer had authorized a change in their long distance carrier, when in fact no such consent was granted by the customer. Ignorant of the falsehood, the customer's local telephone company would change the service as instructed by the carrier and the customer would receive service and incur charges from the newly provisioned long distance provider. This illegal practice eventually became known as slamming. In response to the advent of slamming, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a requirement that the new service provider must first obtain third party verification (TPV) before a customer is switched to a new long distance carrier. The TPV is recorded and performed by an entity distinct from the long distance carrier and serves to verify that the customer consents to the change.
Thus, when a long distance carrier makes a sale to a customer, a TPV is performed and a recording is made of the telephone conversation. Then, the long distance provider submits a request to change the customer's long distance provider. If the customer has slamming protection on their account, then the local telephone company may not provision the change in long distance providers and notifies the long distance provider accordingly.
As a result, the long distance carrier will typically contact the customer and request that the customer contact their local telephone company and indicate that slamming protection be removed from their account. Alternatively, a three-way call may be attempted between the customer, the long distance provider, and the local telephone company. Often, a customer cannot be reached or does not have time to contact their local phone company. This is especially true when attempting to schedule a three-way call. In any event, the resulting frustration may result in lost sales for the carrier.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to automate and streamline the process of removing slamming protection from a customer's account when the customer wants to change their preferred long distance provider.