Patent ID: 7936866

Claim:
A prepaid subscriber and/or number portability routing node comprising: (a) at least one interface module for sending and receiving signaling messages over a network, the interface module receiving a query message relating to a call originated by a prepaid mobile subscriber; (b) a number portability function for performing a number portability lookup that includes extracting a called party number from the query message, obtaining a routing number from a number portability database corresponding to the called party number, and inserting the routing number in the query message; (c) a prepaid subscriber database location function for obtaining a prepaid subscriber database address corresponding to a calling party number in the query message; (d) a routing function for routing the query message that has been modified to include the routing number to a prepaid subscriber database corresponding to the prepaid subscriber database address; and (e) wherein the at least one interface module, the number portability function, the prepaid subscriber database location function, and the routing function are located at the prepaid subscriber number portability routing node.