AN APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR CREDIT BASED MANAGEMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATION ACTIVITY

摘要

The present invention provides an apparatus for credit based management of a telecommunication system. One embodiment of the apparatus includes an interface (133) for communicating credit information on a particular subscriber and for receiving call records (113) for the particular subscriber that are derived from a switch (111) which establishes connections between telecommunication devices. A credit limit device (131) then utilizes the credit information to establish a credit limit for the subscriber. Another embodiment of the invention provides an apparatus for using a pre-call validation request that is associated with a subscriber of a telecommunication system who is attempting to place calls in an area serviced by another system (i.e., roaming) to detect potentially fraudulent activity and, in particular, cloning fraud. In one embodiment, a detection device is provided that uses a time derived from the pre-call validation request to identify telecommunication activity that occurs in an improbable time sequence and is therefore indicative of potentially fraudulent telecommunication activity.