| 摘要 |
<p>A system and method having a number of call processors (105) and servers (101, 102, 103, 104), which provide prepaid or debit card calling service to local areas is disclosed. The servers (101, 102, 103, 104) are linked via a wide area network (WAN) (112) or some other communications network. The system maintains a single account record for each debit card customer. Each account record contains information such as account balance and a rate billing plan for the customer. When a customer makes a prepaid call, a local processor (105) and server (101, 102, 103, 104) handle the call. The local server (101, 102, 103, 104) obtains the customer's record from another server (101, 102, 103, 204) via the WAN (112) if the record is not already present in the local server (101, 102, 103, 104). WAN (112) traffic is reduced because most debit card users routinely call from the same local area and, as a result, most of the calls from a particular customer are processed by the same local call processor (105) and server (101, 102, 103, 104).</p> |
