Patent ID: RE41535

Claim:
In a telephone network, a method for providing pre-paid access to an internet service provider using a billing system of the telephone network, comprising: (a) establishing a database comprising a pre-paid subscriber number and a corresponding amount of pre-paid units; (b) receiving an incoming call from a calling party at a switch serving an internet service provider telephone number, wherein the internet service provider telephone number is stored in a called party field associated with said incoming call; (c) sending a query from the switch to the database in response to the call, wherein the query includes a calling party number; (d) responding to the query with a pre-determined code stored in a calling party field when the calling party number is the pre-paid subscriber number, wherein the pre-determined code is sent to the internet service provider by a service control point to be used to authorize the calling party to access resources of the internet service provider; (e) terminating the call to the internet service provider number with the pre-determined code in the calling party field when the calling party number is the pre-paid subscriber number; and (f) subtracting a usage amount from the amount of pre-paid units in the database.