Patent ID: 8428566

Claim:
A network entity comprising: a receiver for receiving a first message from a mobile device being provided roaming service by a first network, the first message being conformant to a protocol supported by the first network for invoking supplementary services and having embedded therein an invocation message for invocation of at least one supplementary service offered by a second network; a converter for extracting the invocation message from the first message; and an output for sending the invocation message to the second network using a protocol used by the second network to invoke the at least one supplementary service, wherein the invocation message is in a format usable by the mobile device for directly invoking the at least one supplementary service offered by the second network when the mobile device is being provided non-roaming service by the second network, wherein the at least one supplementary service offered by the second network supports at least the functions: enable supplementary service, disable supplementary service and query supplementary service, wherein invoking the at least one supplementary services comprises triggering any one of said functions, wherein the protocol supported by the first network for invoking supplementary services differs from the protocol used by the second network to invoke the at least one supplementary service, wherein the receiver is further configured to receive a reply from the second network in the protocol used by the second network for sending a response to a request for invocation of supplementary services, wherein the converter is further configured to embed the reply into a second message in a transport protocol supported by the first network; and wherein the output is further configured to send the second message to the mobile device in the first network using the transport protocol.