Importance

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Abstract

Local exchange carriers (LECs) face increasingly stiff competition. The LECs provide interconnect services for many of the potentially competing carriers. To forecast business trends and manage its network, any carrier, particularly a LEC, needs to effectively estimate the size and revenue generating potentials of the business of the potentially competing carriers. In accord with the invention, monitor equipment on the one carrier's network forms detailed records from call related messages produced by that network for interconnect call traffic with another carrier's network. These records are loaded into a relational database. Preferably, a data preparation routine enhances the data, for example, by translating certain codes into text and by spreading usage data over predefined time intervals. An on-line analytical processing program runs one or more applications to analyze the interconnect traffic. The analysis provides traffic data regarding the current size and/or changes in the customer base of the other carrier. The analysis also provides estimates of different types of traffic processed by the other carrier's network, for example to estimate normal telephone grade services and higher rate services offered by the other carrier.

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First Claim