Patent ID: 7822703

Claim:
A method for allowing a user to register with an Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) to inspire billing of charges that are incurred incident to receipt of the requested services offered by or through the ISP to a telephone bill, the method comprising: receiving, from a client device, a request to access services offered by or through the ISP; in response to the request to access the services offered by or through the ISP, requesting from a user of the client device, to identify a choice of billing for charges that are incurred incident to receipt of the requested services offered by or through the ISP; receiving, from the user, the choice of billing for the charges that are incurred incident to receipt of the requested services offered by or through the ISP; analyzing the response to determine whether the user has requested telephone billing for the charges that are incurred incident to receipt of the requested services offered by or through the ISP; based on analyzing the response, determining that the user has requested telephone billing for the charges that are incurred incident to receipt of the requested services offered by or through the ISP; retrieving a telephone number associated with the user; determining a number of users who have previously selected the telephone number for billing the charges incident to receipt of the requested services offered by or through the ISP; accessing a threshold that enables determination of a number of users permitted to bill charges for services to the telephone number; determining whether the number of users exceeds the threshold; denying user-requested telephone billing for the charges that are incurred incident to receipt of the requested services offered by or through the ISP when it is determined that the number of users exceed the threshold; and enabling user-requested telephone billing for the charges that are incurred incident to receipt of the requested services offered by or through the ISP when it is determined that the number of users does not exceed the threshold.