Patent ID: 8229414

Claim:
A method of managing a pool of telephone numbers, comprising: a mobile switching center (MSC) identifying an incoming voice call as a customer care call based on a dialing code sequence; the mobile switching center storing an entry associated with the voice call; the mobile switching center coupling the voice call to an over-the-air service provisioning server (OTASP) via a circuit switching fabric of the mobile switching center, the over-the-air service provisioning server adapted for programming a mobile terminal originating the voice call; in response to being coupled to the voice call, the over-the-air service provisioning server allocating a telephone number from a pool of telephone numbers to the mobile terminal; the over-the-air service provisioning server establishing a communication session with a customer service user interface, the communication session transmitting terminal identification information from the over-the-air service provisioning server to the customer service user interface and transmitting mobile terminal programming information from the customer service user interface to the over-the-air service provisioning server; the mobile switching center detecting termination of the voice call; in response to detecting the termination of the voice call and based on the stored entry, the mobile switching center transmitting a notification of the termination of the voice call to an over-the-air database, wherein the notification of the termination is different from a call detail record; based on receiving the notification of the termination of the voice call, updating a record in the over-the-air database associated with the voice call to set a disconnect flag of the record; a listener application transmitting a disconnect message to the over-the-air service provisioning server based on the disconnect flag of the record in the over-the-air database; and in response to receiving the disconnect message, the over-the air service provisioning server returning the telephone number to the pool of telephone numbers.