WO1996001537A1

WO1996001537A1 - Method for establishment, administration and termination of telecommunication services

Info

Publication number: WO1996001537A1
Application number: PCT/NO1995/000116
Authority: WO
Inventors: Odd Arne ÖSTVANG
Original assignee: Oestvang Odd Arne
Priority date: 1994-07-01
Filing date: 1995-06-30
Publication date: 1996-01-18
Also published as: NO942488D0; AU2938495A; NO942488L

Abstract

A method is described for conditional use of subscriptions limited in time and functionality in telecommunication services, where both the assignment and the possible termination of a subscription takes place automatically. By virtually eliminating manual handling, it is possible to reduce economic and other thresholds against services being tried out and taken into use. A main aim has been to reduce and preferably to completely avoid establishment fee and subscription fee for types of subscriptions in telecommunication services. Such subscriptions are particularly well suited as start offerings for recruiting new users. This can be implemented by using automatic (i.e. non-manual) solutions for assignment and administration of subscriptions in the service, together with usage of conditional assignment of the start subscriptions.

Description

Method for establishment, administration and termination of telecommunication services.

The present invention concerns a method for establishment, administration and termina¬ tion of telecommunication services, according to the introductory part of patent claim 1.

Background

The situation in the telecommunication area has been relatively stable for a long time when it comes to designing subscribable services, including marketing, sales and admini- strational routines and system solutions for such services. The model that is normally used, is that a potential user of a service gets in contact with personnel working for, or on behalf of, the operator of the service. This may take place following an initiative from the potential user or following an initiative from the operator of the service or an agency acting on behalf of the operator of the service. After one or more instances of contact in person, on the telephone and/or contact in writing, possibly including exchange of written material (sales material, user manual, booking form, confirmation of the subscription etc.), the subscription is ready to be taken into use and the user has received the necessary information to be able to use the subscription.

The current solutions for sales causes significant costs for the operator of the service for each new subscription. The costs will increase, since not all inquieries by potential users cause sale of subscriptions. Also, of the subscriptions that are sold, not all generate enough income to cover the initial and subsequent costs associated with establishment and admini¬ stration of the subscription. Consequently, the service operator often must either subsidize the establishment of subscriptions and/or charge an establishment fee for new subscriptions. Alternatively, or additionally, a subscription fee is often charged, i.a., to avoid that subscrip¬ tions that are no longer in use continue blocking resources for the service. Blocking of resources will vary from service to service, but will for all subscriptions in¬ clude a subscriber identity. This may be an internal identity in the telecommunication service, and/or one or more identities in external services and/or systems. Identities in the numbering plan of public services is a limited resource, and service operators will normally have to pay for using such identities. Charging establishment fee and/or subscription fee has a series of negative consequences for the service: The most serious is that such price elements may also hinder potential users from getting subscriptions that would have generated net profit for the service operator if they had tried out the service. This aspect is particularly important for service offerings for which there are clear alternatives or competitiors, for products that are not felt to be comp¬ letely necessary and for products where the user foresees relatively low benefit as seen in relationship to the establishment fees and/or subscription fees that are relevant. In addition to the costs associated with the current solutions, and often as a dirct consequ- ence of the cost-generating elements, the current solutions for assignment and administration of subscriptions often cause delays for the user, due to usage of the postal service and limit¬ ed availability of personnel resources, especially during periods with sales campaignes.

The current solutions represent considerable threshholds against potential users trying out telecommunication offerings. What is particularly lacking, is the possibility to get a start sub- scription in a telecommunication service without an establishment fee or a subscription fee being charged.

Object

It is therefore an object with the presented invention to provide a method for establish- ment, administration and termination of telecommunication services, which is simpler, less costly and that utilizes the available resources better than what is the case for known solutions.

The invention The object of the invention is achieved with a method with features as specified in the characterizing part of patent claim 1. Additional features follow from the associated depen¬ dent claims.

This invention includes partial solutions for automatic assignment and, when it turns out to be necessary, termination of subscriptions. It is important that the subscription can be delivered rapidly. With an automatic solution it is simple to make subscriptions ready for use (approximately) at the time they are being assigned. A number of subscriptions may, for instance, have been opened beforehand, and each subscription will then typically be protected by a password or a personal code which is informed about during the assignment transaction. It is possible to avoid establishment fee and subscription fee due to two circumstances: Firstly, use of automatic handling instead of manual routines makes it possible to reduce to a very low level the actual costs for establishment and subsequent administration of subscrip¬ tions. The income from a subscription without establishment fee and subscription fee will normally come from the service being credited for incoming traffic from external services and, if this is wanted, a solution can be chosen where the charges that a potential user pays for the actual transaction where a subscription is assigned or activated cover the establish¬ ment costs. Secondly, the assignment of the subscription is conditional: For instance, the subscription can be terminated if it has not been used during a period of time, and following termination the subscription identity and other resources will be used anew.

There exist a number of solutions where a user can influence her/his subscription without involvement from personnel employed by the operator of the service or other personnel per¬ forming administration of the subscription on behalf of the operator of the service. Examples of this are call forwarding services and call barring services, which the user normally prog¬ ram from her/his own telephone. Both the mentioned examples and solutions from the patent litterature, however, generally either concern extensions of functionality (dependent supple¬ mentary services) and/or activation/deactivation of functionality for an already existing sub¬ scription. Examples that can be mentioned here are, respectively, US patents No. 4,782,517 and 4,897,866.

In contrast to the known solutions, the invention does not require that the user beforehand has any existing subscription from the operator of the service. The establishment transaction may in principle take place from any communication entity from which contact can be attain¬ ed with the entity that establishes, assigns and/or activates subscriptions (a special case is that for activating of subscriptions that are assigned a priori, it might be natural to require identification of the communicating entity being used for the assignment). Likewise, the sub¬ scription may in principle be utilized from any communication device or entity that supports the functionality of the telecommunication service.

Example

In the following, the invention will be described in more detail by use of examples of im¬ plementations.

The main contents of the method in accordance with the present invention, is automatic assignment of subscriptions, and automatic termination of subscriptions. The relationship between these two elements is the following: A solution for automatic termination of sub¬ scriptions hinders subscriptions that do not genereate sufficient income from traffic, from blocking subscription identities and other resources in the production systems. This makes it possible to offer types of subscriptions without establishment fees and subscription fees. For subscriptions without establishment fees and subscription fees, it is not necessary for the service operator to know the identity of the user, and this makes possible automatic estab¬ lishment of these subscriptions.

Automatic assignment of a subscription in principle includes three steps: i) a transaction is established between on one hand the telecommunication service and/or a system that performs automatic assignment of subscriptions on behalf of the telecommunica¬ tion service and on the other hand a potential user of the telecommunication service; ii) information is exchanged between on one hand the telecommunication service and/or a system that performs automatic assignment of subscriptions on behalf of the telecommunica- tion service and on the other hand the potential user of the telecommunication service; and iii) the transaction is ended.

The establishment of the transaction takes place in accordance with the procedures that apply to the telecommunication service or those telecommunication services that are used. The establishment of the transaction may be initiated by the potential user of the telecom- munication service or by the telecommunication service and/or a system that performs automatic assignment of subscriptions on behalf of the telecommunication service.

In the cases where the potential user initiates the transaction and the transactions are initiated from or are routed via public telecommunication services, a simple solution is that the service operator offering automatic assignment of subscriptions makes publicly known subscription identities belonging to public telecommunication services from which such transactions for automatic assignment of subscriptions can be initiated or can be routed via. It is natural to use numbers that are easy to remember for this purpose, e.g. numbers having many identical digits. If automatic establishment is being offered for several different sub¬ scription types or varieties of subscriptions, different subscription identities for automatic assignment that have been made known to the public may be used, or the same assignment identity may be used for several or all subscription types or varieties. The potential user uses the one amongst the subscription identities for automatic assignment of subscriptons made known to the public that corresponds to the type of subscription/service that is wanted.

Assignment of subscription identity may also have been made beforehand, but with the subscription being activated only following a transaction towards the subscription identity that is assigned beforehand. This last case may, and probably normally will, require authen¬ tication during the activation transaction, something which may take place during the estab¬ lishment phase of the transaction and/or during the information exchange phase of the transaction. Authentication during the establishment phase of the transaction may, e.g., be based on the identity of the entity or device initiating the transaction.

When the telecommunication service initiates assignment transactions, the transactions will be addressed to existing subscription identities, normally to identities in other public telecommunication services. Such transactions may have a sales activity aspect, where information is given and where a trial subscription may be offered if the transaction, in an active or in a passiv way, indicates that there may be interest for such a subscription. Active interest may be that mutual exchange of information takes place that explicitly signals this, while passive interest may be that the transaction is not terminated by the called side before assignment of a subscription has taken place.

Information exchange takes place in accordance with the procedures that apply to the telecommunication service or those telecommunication services that is/are used. Relevant information may be given by the potential user and/or by the telecommunication service and/or a system that performs automatic assignment of subscriptions on behalf of the tele- communication service.

This phase of the transaction may vary very much in extent and complexity. In the simpl¬ est form, one may imagine an activating transaction where explicit information is not exchanged between the potential user and the telecommunication service and/or a system that performs automatic assignment of subscriptions on behalf of the telecommunication service. In practice, however, it will practically always be relevant to give the potential user some information. For a simple activation transaction for a subscription that has been assig¬ ned beforehand, this information may be limited to give a response that the subscription has been activated for ordinary use, after which the subscription can be used. If the subscription has not been assigned beforehand, it is not clear beforehand which subscription identity each individual user will be assigned. Beacause information about the potential user in the general case will not be available during automatic assignment, the subscription identity must be part of the information that is exchanged. Usually a personal subscription identity, in contrast with a publicly known access identity for non-personal use, also includes requirements for access control. Normally, protection against unauthorized use will be tied to a personal code or a password. If personal code/password is being used, it will also be necessary to inform the new user about the start value of the code/password at the time of assignment of the subscription. The information that is made available for the potential user may, however, be significant¬ ly more extensive than this: In particular, it will be relevant to inform about the subscription type/telecommuncation service that the transaction concerns. This information may be made available during the same transaction where assignment/activation takes place, or in a sub- sequent transaction initiated by the user or the telecommunication service and/or a system that performs automatic assignment of subscriptions on behalf of the telecommunication service. An example of this last case, is that e.g. the user manual or other information may be retrieved by telefax after a subscription has been assigned in a transaction where spoken information was given to the user. The invention is well suited for implementation using speech based user interfaces, but this is no limitation. For instance, the same functionality may be attained by in principle an app¬ roximately identical implementation for transactions where the potential user uses a com¬ munication terminal with a Visual Display Unit (VDU). A user interface for terminals with a VDU will probably give better over-view and be more user friendlly for some interactive assignment transactions.

Mutual exchange of information during the assignment transaction is both possible and highly relevant. The possibilities for the potential user to influence subscription parameters may be limited to only acceptance or rejection of parameter proposals. The potential user may, however, have wishes when it comes to choice of both subscription identity, personal code/password and other subscription parameters. This is particularly relevant for the sub¬ scription identity. A more user-friendly, but also more complicated solution is therefore that the telecommunication service and /or the administrative system for the telecommunication service may receive proposals for parameter values (including subscription identity) and, to the extent possible, set the paratmeter values to what is wanted or with as good fit as possible compared to what the potential user has indicated.

Also information received prior to, or during the establishment phase of the transaction may be utilized. For instance, it is natural to base the service's proposals for subscription identity on a possible subscription identity that the potential user is associated with in the assignment transaction. This may be relevant independent of which side intitiated the trans- action.

During an assignment transaction, a subscription identity is proposed that e.g. may be based on the subscription identity for an incoming transaction received in the establishment part of the transaction, and where the user may influence this and other parameter choices. In cases where the assignment transaction is initiated from the telecommunication service and/or the administrative system for the telecommunication service, and the telecommunica¬ tion services to which the transactions are directed allow different formats for information transfer, the format of the transaction must be correct. Choice of format may be based on information that is available for the initiating side beforehand, and/or the format may be adjusted based on signals and information received during the transaction. An example of this is the public telephone service, which i.a. allows information transfer on both speech and telefax format. In this specific case, it will be natural to use the speech format from the start, but change this to fax format if fax signalling is detected. Termination of the transaction takes place according to the procedures that apply to the telecommunication service or those telecommunication services that is/are used. Termination of the transaction may be initiated by the potential user or by the telecommunication service and/or a system that performs automatic assignment of subscriptions on behalf of the tele¬ communication service. If the transaction is initiated by a potential user of the service and the transaction does not have a clear limitation in duration, it is natural that the transaction is also terminated by the same side. The exception is if the transaction means a net cost for the operator of the tele¬ communication service and the transaction lasts beyond what is acceptable. If the transaction is initiated by the telecommunication service, this side may also terminate the transaction due to the cost that the transaction represents.

Termination of a subscription is simple enough; the subscription is deactivated so that it can no longer be used. Information that the subscription is no longer in use may be given for transactions that concerns the subsciption identity of the terminated subscription for a period following termination, i.e. during a so called blocking period. At the time of termination, or at the end of a possible blocking period, the subscription identity is made available for reuse. Other resources used by the subscription may be reused before the end of a possible block¬ ing period.

More interesting than the termination of a subscription as such, are the conditions for when termination shall take place. These will, naturally, depend on the history of the sub- scription since last assignment of the subscription identity. The main reason that it may be relevant to terminate a subscription, is that the subscription is not profitable for the service operator. For subscriptions without establishment fees and/or subscription fees, profitability will usually be tied to the traffic generated by the subscription. Termination thus becomes a possibility if the subscription is not being used enough. However, it will hardly be acceptable to terminate a subscription that is still in active use.

Consequently, the simplest and most obvious criterion for automatic termination is that the subscription has not been in active use during a sufficiently long period. The length of this period will vary. For a newly assigned subscription that has not previously generated traffic, the period may be set to some days or some weeks, while for subscriptions that have been used actively for a long time, periods of many months without active use may be accep¬ ted without the subscription being terminated. Circumstances that may influence the criteria for termination, is amount of traffic (accumulated over the life-time of the subscription or as function of time), actual use of resources in the production system, whether the subscription is being used in combination with other services delivered by the same operator, etc.

The invention is a supplement to manual administration of subscriptions. The primary intention of the invention is not to eliminate manual routines for administration of sub- scriptons, but in a more secure way to identify which users and subscriptons can defend a more resource intensive administration and following up, without creating threshholds against usage of the service for the other segments of the market.

The invention may, in other words, be used to support segmentation of the market for telecommunication services, by making possible the implementation of inherently simple and inexpensive subscription types. These subscription types will be especially well suited for recruiting new users for the service. Such start subscription may develop in three different ways:

Firstly, some of the subscriptions will not fulfil the requirements that the service sets for continuation, and will at some point in time be terminated. The users who have had a sub¬ scription terminated may, when needed, rapidly get another, without costs of any consequ- ence. It is not improbable that it will be easier to try again later if the need should arise if one avoids start costs in terms of establishment fee and/or subscription fee. Cheap subscriptions with short life times, which can be established and terminated without costs of any consequ¬ ence may, incidentially, also in itself give increased user benefit in some situations, especially in cases where anonymity is important. Secondly, some of the subscriptions will fulfil the requirements set by the service for con¬ tinuation, and will continue to be used configured as start subscriptions. A probable mini¬ mum requirement for continuation of subscriptions, is in the longer term that the subscrip¬ tion generates net profit for the operator of the service. This group of subscriptions will partly consist of subscriptions that the users would not have acquired if establishment fee and/or subscription fee were charged. If the subscription is in use, a real customer relation¬ ship exists, even though the service operator normally does not have information about who the user is. This relationship may be used to advantage for marketing other configurations of the service and /or other services in the operator's portfolio of services.

Thirdly, it is assumed that some of the subscriptions will be up-graded to other service offerings than start subscriptions, and/or the users take into use other (subscribable) services in the operator's portefolia of services. Also within this group there will probably be users that would not have acquired their subscriptions if establishment fee and/or subscription fee had been charged for the start subscription.

For subscriptions that already are or have been in use there exists information, e.g. in the form of traffic statistics, that can indicate which resource usage for the subscription will be profitable for the operator, e.g. when it comes to following-up activities and administrative handling. Instead of spreading the resources amongst all new subscriptions, the effort may thereby instead be concentrated where it is most profitable. Groups that it may be sensible to use resources on following up, are users that on their own initiative demand up-grading of their subscriptions, users that take into use others of the operator's services and users with subscriptions that generate much traffic, and thus income. Automatic administration of conditionally assigned subscriptions will make it possible to design service offerings in telecommunication services which, by effectivly utilizing the production system and by avoiding unneccesary costs for administrative handling, can be offered at advantageous prices in the market.

To be economically viable, subscriptions without establishment fee and subscription fee must in most cases give the service operator income from traffic. The simplest way to attain this, is that the service is credited with income for in-coming traffic. This principle is used for clearing of accounts for traffic between e.g. the networks of different telecommunica¬ tions operators (e.g. between different national operators/carriers), and between the tele¬ communication operators and firms or persons offering value added services (VAS), which e.g. are being accessed through Primary Rate numbers. Alternative ways to get income for such subscriptions, may be that payment takes place through a Primary Rate number, or that the user charges an external subscription (Tele-card, credit card etc.) for the usage of the subscription. These solutions may in principle be used for both traffic charges, establishment fees and subscription fees. As follows from the discussion above, the invention does in the short run seem to be most relevant for those of value added services (VAS services) and similar services that require that the user has a personal subscription identity and where the service operator is credited with income from (mainly) in-coming traffic. Examples of this are different forms of message services - such as answering services for telephone and telefax, the paging services and combinations of these.

Claims

Claims:

1. A method for establishment, administration and termination of subscriptions in tele¬ communication services, where a supplier offers subscriptions in the telecommunciation services and users demand the telecommunication services, characterized by the subscriptions being made conditional in terms of limitation in time or in other ways, by automatic establishment, assignment and/or activation of subscriptions taking place during, or as consequence of transactions where manual personnel is not used, and by the subscriptions being basically independent and not requesting or requiring that the users beforehand have a subscription from the operator.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1, characterized by the transactions being initiated from and/or by the transactions utilizing resources in non-public telecommunication offerings, e.g. PSTN, PLMN, PSPDN, CSPDN and ISDN, and/or utilizing resources in non-public telecommunication offerings, such as communication between the telecommunication service and/or a system that performs automatic establishment, assignment and/or activation of subscription on behalf of the telecommunication service and externally located sales terminals.

3. A method in accordance with claim 2, characterized by the transactions being initiated by potential users of the subscription to¬ wards subscription identities of which the public has been informed, and which are thereby publicly known, in public telecommunication services, which directly or indirectly are being used for such automatic establishment, assignment and/or activation of subscriptions.

4. A method in accordance with claim 2, characterized by a selection of parameters for subscriptions belonging to types of subscrip¬ tions in a service offering, completely or partly being determined based on information that has been made available for the telecommunication service and/or a system that performs automatic establishment, assignment and/or activation of subscriptions on behalf of the tele- communciaton service, prior to and/or during a transaction where the subscription is estab¬ lished, assigned and/or activated or a transaction that causes the subscription to be estab¬ lished, assigned and/or activated.

5. A method in accordance with claim 4, characterized by the selection of subscription identity taking place with the aim to optimize the likeness between the assigned subscription identity and a possible received network identity that the user is associated with during the assignment transaction and/or to optimize the likeness between the assigned subscription identity and one or more other templates for subscription identity received by the telecommunication service and/or a system that per¬ forms automatic establishment, assignment and/or actiavation of subscriptions on behalf of the telecommunication service, prior to and/or during the assignment transaction.

6. A method in accordance with claim 5, characterized by the user being given the possibility to reject an assigned subscription ident¬ ity, after which the supplier withdraws the rejected identity and assigns a new subscription identity.

7. A method in accordance with claim 1, characterized by subscriptions belonging to types of subscriptions in service offerings in telecommunication services, automatically being terminated, i.e. being made inaccessible for use, and resources used by terminated subscriptions being made available for reuse when the requirements for this are fulfilled.

8. A method in accordance with claim 7, characterized by termination of a subscription taking place when a subscription during a given time period has not been accessed, or has not been accessed in a transaction where the requirements for authentication of the user towards the subscription are fulfilled.

9. A method in accordance with claims 7 and 8, characterized by the subscription identity being included amongst the resources used by a terminated subscription which are made available for reuse, possibly following a blocking period from the time of termination, during which period information about the status of the subscription may be made available for transactions concerning the subscription identity.

10. A method in accordance with claim 1, characterized by blocking caused by lack of payment for a subscription being selectively limited to withdrawal of certain types of functionality, while the rest of the functionality of the subscription may still be used.

11. A method in accordance with claims 1 and 10, characterized by types of functionality that have been withdrawn due to lack of payment, being automatically made available anew when the user pays.

12. A method in accordance with claim 2, characterized by the transaction being initiated by the telecommuniation service and/or a system that performs automatic establishment, assignment and /or activation of subscriptions on behalf of the telecommunication service, by the transaction being addressed to a tele- phony service (PSTN, PLMN, ISDN etc.) and by the format used for transfer of information in the transaction (normally speech format or telefax format) being determined based on information known in beforehand about the identity that the transacton is addressed to and /or the format being adjusted based on signals and/or other information received or exchanged during the transaction.