Abstract: Techniques for ascertaining the geographic position of users and terminals in a wireless communications system are used, for example, by operations personnel in performing system maintenance and by emergency personnel in locating lost or injured individuals. According to an exemplary method of requesting and obtaining user position information, user terminals in a wireless communications system routinely transmit position information to mobile switching centers in the system, and the mobile switching centers maintain up-to-date terminal position information in visiting location registers. Requests for user position information are routed to a home location register which in turn routes terminal position requests to mobile switching centers with which the target users are registered. Terminal position information is retrieved from the appropriate visiting location registers and sent back to the requesting parties with a minimum of system traffic.

Abstract: A subscription record within a telecommunication system is sub-divided into three separate registers, namely, a user, a subscription and a terminal register. The use of three separate registers within the system allows several terminals to be associated with one user, several users to be associated with one terminal, several subscriptions to be associated with one user, and several users to be selectively associated with one subscription. The subscription records include a list of allowed users for each subscription account. Additionally, the subscription records include a schedule that defines allowable usage time for each user. The user records include a schedule which defines what subscription accounts will be charged at specified times during the week.