Means and method for providing local telephone number portability

Claim 1

In a telecommunications system, apparatus for recognizing a dialed virtual service number and selecting augmenting call connection information which may differ from the number dialed by a caller, but which is recognized by the system as the intended destination subscriber number, comprising: at least two local switches; a first database means storing call connection information serving one local switch serving the dialing caller; a second database means storing call connection information, serving the at least two local switches throughout the telecommunications system; means responsive to the dialed virtual number received by the serving local switch for selectively querying the first database means for call connection information of the intended destination subscriber; means responsive to the absence of acceptable call connection information in the first database means, residing in the one served switch, for selectively querying the second database means for call connection information; means for providing call connection information received in response to a query of the second database means to the first database means; and means for implementing a call from the local switch utilizing the call connection information provided by either the first database means or the second database means.

Claim 11

A method of providing a telecommunications system the capability of routing calls in the absence of NPA, NXX or XXXX numbers in the virtual service number dialed corresponding to the NPA, NXX or XXXX numbers recognized by the telecommunications system as the actual service number for the area code NPA number, local switch NXX number, and personal identification XXXX number of the intended destination recipient, comprising: storing, for each subscriber to a telecommunications system, in a first database, call connection information sets correlated to the associated virtual service number for the subscriber, the call connection information including augmenting call connection information which provides the equivalent of the actual service number recognized by the telecommunications system as the destination of the subscriber within the telecommunications system; storing, for a limited number of selected subscribers to a telecommunications system, in a second database, call connection information sets correlated to the associated virtual service number for each selected subscriber, the call connection information including augmenting call connection information which provides the equivalent of the actual service number recognized by the telecommunications system as the destination of the subscriber within the telecommunications system; querying the second database by a switch served by the second database upon receipt of a dialed virtual service number; retrieving from the second database the correlated call connection information; delivering to the querying switch the retrieved correlated call connection information; querying the first database by the switch, if the call connection information received from the second database is a negative response, for the correlated call connection information; retrieving from the first database the correlated call connection information for the dialed virtual service number queried; delivering to the querying switch the retrieved correlated call connection information; utilizing the call connection information by the querying local switch to augment the dialed virtual number to place the call across the telecommunications network to reach the intended destination subscriber.

Claim 17

A method of employing numbers other than the area code NPA number, the serving switch NXX number and/or the personal identification number recognized by a telecommunications system as that of a particular subscriber in dialing and successfully connecting with the termination destination of that subscriber comprising the steps of: assigning a virtual service number to be dialed in calling the subscriber; assigning augmenting call connection information and other call connection information consistent with the requirements of the telecommunications system to properly route and connect a call to the subscriber's terminal location; establishing a first database as part of the telecommunications system accessible by switches in the system; establishing and dedicating a second database to a switch in the telecommunications system; correlating the virtual service number to the augmenting call connection information and other call connection information to define a correlated call connection information set; storing the correlated call connection information set in the first database which contains all call connection information sets for the telecommunications system; storing selected call connection information sets in the second database which will accept a finite number of call connection information sets; and providing a determined call connection information set from the first database to the second database when the second database does not contain acceptable call connection information for a dialed virtual number.

Claim 19

A method of maintaining a desired service number for a telecommunications system service subscriber comprising the steps of: correlating a number dialed to reach the intended subscriber with the number recognized as the service termination location for that subscriber; and translating within the telecommunications system from the dialed number to the recognized number in placing the call across the telecommunications network.