Patent ID: 8401547

Claim:
A method for facilitating Home Location Register (HLR) access, comprising: (a) receiving a query request from a query entity, the query request comprising a Mobile Subscriber (MS) identifier; (b) performing one or more processing steps on the query request including at least (i) identifying an HLR based, at least, on the MS identifier and (ii) generating an SS7 SendRoutingInformation (SRI) request message, the SS7 SRI request message comprising the MS identifier; (c) dispatching the SS7 SRI request message to the HLR; (d) receiving an SS7 SRI response message from the HLR, the SS7 SRI response message comprising a set of data; (e) performing one or more processing steps on the SS7 SRI response message, including at least (i) redacting a portion of the set of data and (ii) generating a coded value identifying the wireless carrier to which the MS identifier is associated, yielding a query response, the query response comprising the coded value; and (f) returning the query response to the query entity, wherein the query entity does not have authorization to directly access the HLR.