Patent ID: 7751389

Claim:
A message-forwarding system, comprising: a look-up table having a plurality of records, each record including an action indicator; and a message-forwarding home location register (MFHLR) configured to verify registration and authentication information of a subscriber, wherein the MFHLR is configured to receive a message initiated by the subscriber of the MFHLR and containing subscriber identification information of the subscriber, wherein the MFHLR is operable to determine from the subscriber identification information in the message whether to process the verification of the registration and authentication information of the subscriber locally at the MFHLR, and is further operable to determine whether to forward the message to another home location register (HLR) to perform the verification instead of processing the verification locally, and wherein the determination as to whether to forward the message to the another HLR for verification or process the verification locally includes determining whether the subscriber identification information of the message matches a record of the plurality of records in the look-up table and, in response to finding a matching record, determining whether the action indicator of the matching record indicates that the matching message is to be forwarded by the message-forwarding home location register to another HLR or to be processed locally in the message-forwarding home location register, and, in response to a completion of the verification locally or at the another HLR, communicating the verification to a switching center to allow the switching center to route the message to a second subscriber.