| 摘要 |
<p>Air-time for pre-paid mobile telephones, such as cellular telephones, is purchased through a wide variety of User Interface Peripherals (14, 16, 20, 22, 24, 25) by the use of a hub (12) and network connected to the User Interface Peripherals (14, 16, 20, 22, 24, 25). The network is used for selectively communicating with one of several different cellular telephone service providers (26, 28) to relay the information about payment received for additional air-time on a specific cellular telephone. Preferably, the hub (12) comprises a website server or computerized switch which communicates with the User Interface Peripherals (14, 16, 20, 22, 24, 25) and the service providers (26, 28). With this system, various User Interface Peripherals (14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25) can be used, such as point-of-sale terminals (16) in stores; computers (14) accessing a website; cash-receiving and/or credit card receiving vending machines, such as card-reading gasoline pumps (18), air line ticket vending machines, lottery ticket vending machines, bill-paying machines, check-cashing machines, automatic teller machines (22), cellular telephones (25), dedicated payment-receiving machines, etc. This system and method eliminates the need for the telephone cards, but enables cellular and other mobile telephones to be supplied with air-time from many different locations, by any of a number of mobile telephone service providers.</p> |
