Abstract: The method and apparatus is for providing a mobile station in a telecommunication network with capability of activating a high speed packet data session without subscribing to a high speed packet data service and selecting a higher data rate than the rate it is currently subscribing to.

Abstract: A method and system provides automatic/timed silencing of a mobile phone by a telecommunications network. The method has the steps of: forming a schedule of silence at a mobile phone; sending the schedule of silence to a mobile switching center; storing the schedule of silence in a subscriber database in the mobile switching center; blocking at least incoming calls at the mobile switching center according to the stored schedule of silence, and sending a first message to the mobile phone that instructs the mobile phone to enter a silence mode; transmitting, according to the stored schedule of silence, a second message from the mobile switching center to the mobile phone that instructs the mobile phone to exit the silence mode, and ceasing to block at least the incoming calls to the mobile phone. The system implements the method.

Abstract: A method and system in a telecommunications network for: receiving an incoming call for a mobile phone; determining a country code associated with the incoming call; determining a country code associated with the mobile phone; comparing the country code associated with the incoming call to the country code associated with the mobile phone; determining that the incoming call is an international call, when the country code associated with the incoming call is different from the country code associated with the mobile phone; and determining that the incoming call is an in-country call, when the country code associated with the incoming call substantially matches the country code associated with the mobile phone. The system implements the method.

Abstract: A method and system in a telecommunications network for verbally announcing an incoming call has in one embodiment the steps of: receiving from a telecommunications network indication of a call with caller-ID information at a mobile phone; determining at the telecommunications network, for a given caller, if unique audio information has been stored for the caller-ID information; using text-to-speech translated external database lookup information for the name and number that is associated with the caller-ID information, if no unique audio information has been stored for the caller-ID information; transmitting, from the telecommunications network to the mobile phone, the audio information that is associated with the caller-ID information; and playing the audio information at the mobile phone. The system implements the method.

Abstract: A method and system in a telecommunications network for visually alerting a user of an incoming call are disclosed herein. A call can be transmitted to a mobile device associated with a user of the telecommunications network. An alert can also be transmitted to one or more visual alerting devices associated with the user and/or the mobile device, in response to transmitting a call to the mobile device. A visual alerting signal can then be transmitted via the visual alerting device, in response to transmitting the alert to the at least one visual alerting device associated with the user. Each visual alerting device can provide a visually alerting signal when there is an incoming message for its user. The visual alerting device can receive its signal directly from a base station within said telecommunications network.