| 摘要 |
<p>A system and method having a number of call processors and servers which provide prepaid or debit card calling service to local areas is disclosed. The servers are linked via a wide area network (WAN) or some other communications network. The system maintains a single account record for each debit card customer. Each account record contains information such as an account balance and a rate billing plan for the customer. When a customer makes a prepaid call, a local call processor and server handle the call. The local server obtains the customer's record from another server via the WAN if the record is not already present in a local database. WAN traffic is reduced because most debit card users routinely call from the same local area and, as a result, most of calls from a particular customer are processed by the same local call processor and server.</p> |
