Patent ID: 8712372

Claim:
A convergent telecommunications system architecture comprising: a telecommunications support architecture comprising prepaid rating balances and post-paid account balances for service customers; a prepaid architecture that tracks service usage for a prepaid service; and a bi-directional messaging interface configured to connect the telecommunications support architecture and the prepaid architecture, the bi-directional messaging interface comprising: a prepaid account refill interface from the telecommunications support architecture to the prepaid architecture, the prepaid account refill interface including a refill message adapter comprising a refill message mapping from a telecommunications support architecture refill message to a prepaid architecture refill message, wherein the refill message mapping includes transforming a format used by the telecommunication support architecture to a second, different format used by the prepaid architecture; and a service usage interface from the prepaid architecture to the telecommunications support architecture, wherein the service usage interface includes: a service use event record having an event header; a dynamically configurable event attribute list; and multiple event type definitions, each including an event attribute definition which specifies event attributes configured to be inserted into the dynamically configurable event attribute list in the service use event record.