Inventors:
Sue Harkins Crim - Grapevine TX, US
Thomas Michael Brill - Grapevine TX, US
Patrick Steward Trigonoplos - Flower Mound TX, US
David Lloyd Neyman - Tampa FL, US
Rushika G. Mediwake - Flower Mound TX, US
Assignee:
GTE Communications Corporation - New York NY
International Classification:
G06F 17/00
Abstract:
A process is provided for a billing controller receives a request identifying a customer and indicating one of a plurality of providers for a selected product, converts a portion of the received request into a provisioning request based on the selected product; and provides the provisioning request to the provider. The billing controller also receives a request identifying a customer and including a bundle code indicating a plurality of providers for selected products, converts portions of the received request into provisioning requests based on the code, and provides the provisioning requests to the providers. The billing controller also receives usage data for a customer from a plurality of providers, converts the usage data from each provider into a standard usage data format based on predetermined billing rules, and stores the converted usage data linked to a customer record. The billing controller also accesses a stored customer record identifying a customer and including usage data and a plurality of codes, specifies a bill format from the codes, determines whether codes identify a selected bundle of products from at least two providers, and generates a bill including the usage data in the specified format. In generating the bill, the billing controller computes any discount based on the result of the determination, computes taxes for each of the products, and uses the computed discount and taxes in generating the bill.