| 摘要 |
Feature activation has historically been performed exclusively at the system that will provide the features to subscribers and/or users. The features have been built in as a part of a system software package. Even though the features have been built in, they were only available for use by the system to the extent that licenses for those features had been purchased. When the proper licensing fee is paid, an ON/OFF bit was set to ON in a feature activation table. Features that have numerical use values instead of ON/OFF use multiple bit entries in the feature activation table. The feature activation table was encrypted by the software provider to discourage tampering with or misappropriation of telephone service features. With such an arrangement, feature changes could only be made by sending software provider personnel to the system to load a new feature activation table, which also can with the latest version of the system software. The invention provides a method and apparatus for feature changing from a server, which can be remote and centrally located. With this invention feature changes are made quickly without sending personnel to the system location to effect the change. The system owner can change features as its subscribers change the features they want. The software provider can license features for lines in finer granularity and for short time periods to offer different types of licenses to obtain more revenue.
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