By Thomas J. Neville, Viewer's Choice Matthew D. Miller, Viacom International
The benefits and architecture of a national ANI pay-per-view ordering system are described. Using AT&T's INF01 800 service, VIEWER'S CHOICE will make available to all addressable cable operators a high volume, impulse PPV ordering system. Customers call an 800 number and hear an announcement confirming their orders. The AT&T network passes the customer's 10 digit phone number, together with the last 4 digits dialed, to a central node. This data is then transmitted to the cable headend via a satellite data channel. Inexpensive downlink hardware and software screen the data by area code and local exchange. System relevant phone numbers are then passed via a standard protocol to either the billing system or the addressable controller at the operator's discretion.