Apparatus and method for facilitating service management of communications services in a communications network

US6778651B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• The Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. · US

Inventors

• Larry T. Jost · Chesterfield, US
• Tim Klos · High Ridge, US
• Pat Champion · Chesterfield, US
• Mary B. Clark · Florissant, US
• Terry Gilmore · Glen Carbon, US
• Randall Leet · Eureka, US
• Gary Martens · Florissant, US
• Sue Merz · Holden, US
• Mark Sexton · Merrimack, US
• Mark Steinmetz · Florissant, US
• John Vallely · Florissant, US
• Terry L. Vieth · Chesterfield, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Feb 13, 1998
• Grant date: Aug 17, 2004
• Expiry date: Feb 13, 2018

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H04M2215/016
• WIPO field: Telecommunications
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A service management system for a communications network which accepts requests for communications services from service order sources. The service management system includes an interface to the service order sources, a database, and an interface to network elements which provide the communications services. The service order sources may have differing order input formats which are converted by the system into a single internal format for processing and determining of provisioning information to be output to the network-elements. The service management system includes table-driven logic which is used to validate and process the requests to determine the provisioning information. Once the provisioning information is determined, it is queued to the appropriate network element, and an acknowledgment is sent to the originating service order source. The service management system also includes a interface to query the database and network elements to perform debugging and error correction.