Patent ID: 8774772

Claim:
A method for preventing voicemail tromboning in a telecommunications network environment, said method comprising: receiving an incoming call message from a switch in the home public land mobile network (HPLMN) with a voicemail server, wherein the incoming call message is received by a gateway mobile switching center (G-MSC) in the HPLMN and forwarded to a service broker, wherein the service broker contacts a prepaid service control point (PP SCP) to obtain approval for establishing a call; determining that a recipient device of said incoming call message is roaming in a visited public land mobile network (VPLMN); contacting a visited switch in the VPLMN, capable of forwarding calls to the voicemail server in the HPLMN, directly instructing, by a service broker on the HPLMN, the visited switch in the VPLMN to disable a late call forwarding in the VPLMN; once the late call forwarding is disabled, contacting, via the service broker, the voicemail server in the HPLMN to verify that the recipient device of said incoming call still has access to the voicemail server; confirming, at the service broker, that the late call forwarding has been disabled for the incoming call message in the visited switch; upon confirming that the late call forward has been disabled, relaying, by the service broker, the incoming call message to the visited switch in the VPLMN, wherein if the incoming call message is not answered by the recipient device, the visited switch does not forward the incoming call to the voicemail server in the HPLMN and instead responds to the switch in the HPLMN with a message indicating that the subscriber device was not answered by the recipient device; once the switch in the HPLMN receives the message from the visited switch, notifying, via the switch in the HPLMN, the service broker that the incoming call message was not answered by the recipient device; forwarding, via the service broker, the incoming call message to the voicemail server in the HPLMN, which answers the incoming call message; and after answering the incoming call message by the voicemail server in the HPLMN, informing, via the switch in the HPLMN, the service broker of the answer, wherein the service broker notifies the PP SCP that the incoming call message was answered by the voicemail server in the HPLMN; wherein if the PP SCP responds to the service broker with approval, the switch in the HPLMN is instructed to notify the party originating the call that the incoming call message was answered by the voicemail server in the HPLMN.