Patent ID: 8718686

Claim:
A method for fulfilling a service requested by a user of a communication device, the method comprising: receiving a communication over a signaling channel of a call, at a call-switching system in a communication network, to thereby provision the call-switching system to recognize a prefix code in a received digit string; receiving, by the call-switching system from the communication device, a dialed digit string comprising the prefix code and a data code; suspending the call and recognizing, by the call-switching system, the prefix code in the dialed digit string, and in response, (i) translating the prefix code into a destination point-code address of a service control point (SCP) and (ii) transmitting, based on the destination address, a request message comprising the dialed digit string to SCP which in turn forwards the request message to a service processing-system associated with the SCP; identifying, by a service-processing system, a fulfillment service associated with the data code contained within the request message; looking up, by a service-processing system in a stored database, a service fulfillment based on the identified data code; and if the service processing system determines the data code is valid, resuming the call and fulfilling the service indicated by the data code in accordance with a fulfillment description in the service-processing system; if the service processing system determines the data code is invalid, transmitting by the service processing system via the SCP to the call-switching system a command configured to cause the call-switching system to continue translate the prefix code and resume the call processing.