Patent ID: 7818000

Claim:
A method of selecting a preferred foreign wireless network to provide service to roaming subscribers, the method comprising: receiving registration messages for roaming subscribers being transmitted from a plurality of foreign wireless networks to a home location register (HLR) of a home wireless network, wherein none of the foreign wireless networks are preferred over another one of the foreign wireless networks; monitoring the registration messages received from each of the foreign wireless networks to maintain a count of the number of registration messages received from each of the foreign wireless networks, and forwarding the registration messages to the HLR; selecting one of the foreign wireless networks as a preferred foreign wireless network based on the count for each of the foreign wireless networks over a time period and a threshold number of registration messages for a preferred foreign wireless network; after selecting the preferred foreign wireless network and responsive to receiving a subsequent registration message transmitted from one of the foreign wireless networks to the HLR, the method further comprises: determining if the subsequent registration message was received from the preferred foreign wireless network; and forwarding the subsequent registration message to the HLR if the subsequent registration message was received from the preferred foreign wireless network.