Patent ID: 7110513

Claim:
An automated method of providing information for an international telephone number, the method comprising: receiving an international telephone number from a user via a secure network connection, the international telephone number dialed by a caller and including a plurality of digits; in response to receiving the international telephone number, consulting a table of prefixes in a centralized database of characteristics to identify a longest matching prefix for the international telephone number, the table of prefixes comprising telephone number prefixes of different lengths, and wherein identifying a longest matching prefix for the international telephone number comprises: comparing the received international telephone number with at least a portion of the telephone number prefixes in the table of prefixes; based on the comparison, identifying multiple telephone number prefixes that match a portion of the digits of the international telephone number, the multiple matching telephone number prefixes including telephone number prefixes of different lengths; and identifying from the multiple matching telephone number prefixes, the matching telephone number prefix having the longest length; in response to identifying the longest matching prefix, automatically consulting a location table in the centralized database to retrieve location information associated with the longest matching prefix; and in response to retrieving the location information associated with the longest matching prefix, automatically transmitting the location information to the user.