Patent ID: 7978835

Claim:
A method for notifying a subscriber of a service status for a service comprising: configuring an interactive voice response system to: accept, from a subscriber, a service restoration notification request and callback preferences associated with the service restoration notification request, wherein the callback preferences indicate a threshold time of day for callback; invoke an outage detection application operable to detect a service outage; receive, from the outage detection application, outage detection information indicative of whether the subscriber is affected by the service outage; and responsive to receiving outage detection information indicating the subscriber as being affected by the service outage, modifying a callback database to include an entry corresponding to the subscriber; and configuring a callback application, having access to the callback database to: invoke automatically the outage detection application to determine a status of the service outage; and respond to a restoration indication from the outage detection application, when a time of day at which the restoration indication is received is prior to the threshold time of day for callback, by initiating a call to the subscriber.