SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR LOCATING A MOBILE SUBSCRIBER TERMINAL WHEN ROAMING

摘要

The location of a mobile subscriber roaming outside a home network may be used to authorize a transaction initiated by the mobile subscriber or to authenticate the mobile subscriber when signing into secure accounts. The location of the mobile subscriber is determined by providing a unique mobile subscriber identifier, such as the MSISDN, to an application that communicates with the home network and the roaming network. By communicating with the roaming network, the application can determine the current location of the roaming mobile subscriber terminal with location resolution down to the specific cell in which the mobile subscriber terminal is located. The location of the mobile subscriber terminal may be saved locally in a database associated with an authorization entity, thereby advantageously reducing the number of location look-ups requested by the authorization entity.

主权项

1. A method of authorizing a transaction, said method comprising the steps of:
receiving a request to authorize a transaction being conducted at a point-of-sale (POS); acquiring purchaser data from the request; transmitting a request to locate the purchaser and receiving location data indicating a location of the purchaser in response thereto; storing the purchaser location; comparing a POS location with the purchaser location; and authorizing or denying the transaction based on the step of comparing.