Methods for providing overdraft protection for post-paid communication service plans

1. A method for implementing a service plan, comprising:

defining a calling plan account comprising a plurality of calling plan periods, each having a predetermined number of minutes;

defining an overdraft protection plan that adds overdraft minutes to the calling plan account;

determining whether the predetermined number of minutes has been reached during the calling plan period;

selecting between borrowing minutes from a future calling plan period and charging the account for additional overdraft minutes, the cost per minute of the overdraft minutes being less than the cost per minute normally associated with exceeding the threshold number of minutes during the calling plan period; and

adding minutes to the calling plan when the predetermined number of minutes has been reached.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of determining whether the calling plan account is subscribed to the overdraft protection plan by electronically querying an overdraft protection server, the overdraft protection server being configured to store account identifiers for accounts subscribed to the overdraft protection plan.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the adding step is performed automatically when the predetermined number of minutes has been reached.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of sending a message from a billing system server to a user communication device to determine whether the user wishes to purchase additional minutes, the billing system server being configured to receive a response from the user communication device and wherein the adding step is performed responsive to receiving a positive response from the user.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the additional minutes are deducted from a second set of minutes associated with a second calling plan period.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the calling plan includes use of a plurality of devices.

7. The method claimed in claim 1 , further comprising:

sending a notification from a billing system server to a user communication device indicating that additional minutes have been added.

8. An overdraft protection system for implementing an overdraft protection plan for a calling plan account for a post paid calling plan that defines an allocation of minutes in a communication network, comprising:

a billing system server comprising:

a processor; and

a computer readable memory;

the billing system server being configured to:

define the calling plan account as comprising a plurality of calling plan periods each having a predetermined number of minutes;

define the overdraft protection plan that adds overdraft minutes to the calling plan account;

monitor calling plan usage on the account;

determine whether the predetermined number of minutes has been reached during a predefined calling plan period associated with the account;

determine whether the account is subscribed to the overdraft protection plan;

select between borrowing minutes from a future calling plan period and charging the account for additional overdraft minutes if the plan is subscribed to the overdraft protection plan;

add minutes to the allocation defined by the calling plan if the predetermined number of minutes has been reached; and

modify the account to indicate the added minutes.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the overdraft protection plan defines a cost per minute for minutes added beyond the predetermined number of minutes.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the amount charged per minute for the added minutes is less than the cost per minute associated with exceeding the allocation of minutes if the account is not subscribed to the overdraft protection plan.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the billing system server is configured to add minutes to the calling plan automatically when the predetermined number of minutes has been reached and the account is subscribed to the overdraft protection plan.

12. The system of claim 8 , wherein the billing system is further configured to:

request instructions from a user of the account via the communication network to determine whether the user wishes to add minutes to the account;

receive a response from the user indicating whether additional minutes are to be added; and

add minutes only if a positive response is received.

13. The system of claim 8 , further comprising:

an overdraft protection server configured to store account identifiers for accounts that are subscribed to the overdraft protection plan, where the billing system server determines whether the account is subscribed to the overdraft protection plan by querying the overdraft protection server.

14. A method for selectively providing overdraft protection to a user of a subscriber based communications network, comprising:

activating a post paid account for the user, the user subscribing to a calling plan comprising a plurality of calling plan periods with a predetermined base level of minutes allotted to each calling plan period, the account information being recorded in a billing system server;

defining a calling plan account comprising a plurality of calling plan periods each having a predetermined number of minutes;

defining an overdraft protection plan that adds overdraft minutes to the calling plan account;

monitoring the account usage using the billing system server;

selecting between borrowing additional minutes from a future calling plan period and charging the account for additional overdraft minutes; and

automatically adjusting the calling plan, using the billing system server, to provide the additional minutes in predetermined first block size increments as the account usage increases above the base level of minutes.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising;

adjusting the calling plan, using the billing system server, to provide additional minutes in predetermined second block size increments for a second predetermined cost per block as the account usage increases above a first threshold number of minutes over the base level of minutes.

16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising:

adjusting the calling plan, using the billing system server, to provide additional minutes at a predetermined cost per minute as the account usage increases above a second threshold number of minutes above the base level of minutes.

17. The method of claim 14 , wherein the adjusted calling plan minutes can be shared among multiple communication devices.