Management of community Wi-Fi network

• US 10,129,761 B2
• Filed: 01/31/2017
• Issued: 11/13/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: MacDonald, David Neil, Goyal, Piyush, Sharma, Saumaya, Guday, Shai, Kuehnel, Thomas Werner, Singh, Vikas, Lamba, Triptpal Singh, Ford, Brent Edward, Hathaway, Jonathan
• Primary Examiner(s): Foud, Hicham B
• Application Number:
  US15/421,050
• Publication Number:
  US 20170142597A1
• Time in Patent Office: 651 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2854 Wide area networks, e.g. public data networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/18 Network planning tools
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/04 Arrangements for maintaining operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/08 User group management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]

Abstract

Various technologies described herein pertain to managing and accessing a community Wi-Fi network. The community Wi-Fi network can include sharer computing devices in differing local networks that share respective network bandwidth capacities with consumer computing devices. Feedback information pertaining to network bandwidth capacity available at different geographic locations covered by the community Wi-Fi network can be collected and evaluated to enable generation of maps for visualizing coverage of the community Wi-Fi network. A consumer computing device can display a map that includes visual information pertaining to the geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network relative to a geographic location of the consumer computing device. Community Wi-Fi network coverage can be analyzed to detect geographic locations at which network coverage is desirably added; network coverage can be added by incentivizing a potential sharer computing device to opt in to share network bandwidth capacity or controlling beamforming of sharer computing device(s).

Claims

1. A method of operating a consumer computing device, comprising:

receiving, at the consumer computing device, network coverage data indicative of geographic coverage of a community Wi-Fi network, wherein the community Wi-Fi network comprises sharer computing devices in differing local networks that share respective network bandwidth capacities, wherein the geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network is a union of geographic coverages of the sharer computing devices that share the network bandwidth capacities available to the differing local networks, and wherein the community Wi-Fi network is accessible by the consumer computing device within the union of the geographic coverages of the sharer computing devices using the network bandwidth capacities of the differing local networks shared by the sharer computing devices; and

displaying visual information on a display screen of the consumer computing device that specifies one or more types of applications available for execution by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network at a geographic location of the consumer computing device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying visual information on the display screen of the consumer computing device that specifies one or more types of applications unavailable for execution by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network at the geographic location of the consumer computing device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the visual information displayed on the display screen that specifies the one or more types of applications available for execution by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network at the geographic location of the consumer computing device changes over time.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the visual information comprises an overlay on a map displayed on the display screen of the consumer computing device.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the visual information comprises a list displayed on the display screen of the consumer computing device.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving information specifying a desired type of application for execution by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network, wherein the desired type of application is unavailable for execution by the consumer computing device at the geographic location via the community Wi-Fi network; and

displaying a suggestion on the display screen of the consumer computing device to enable the desired type of application to be executed.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the suggestion specifies a disparate geographic location for repositioning of the consumer computing device, wherein the desired type of application is available for execution by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network at the disparate geographic location.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising executing, utilizing the consumer computing device at the geographic location, at least one of the one or more types of applications via the community Wi-Fi network.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising causing a service upgrade for the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network at the geographic location such that a desired type of application becomes available for execution by the consumer computing device at the geographic location via the community Wi-Fi network, wherein the desired type of application is unavailable for execution by the consumer computing device at the geographic location via the community Wi-Fi network prior to the service upgrade.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying geographic usage information on the display screen of the consumer computing device, wherein the geographic usage information is indicative of geographic locations at which the consumer computing device previously consumed network bandwidth capacity of the community Wi-Fi network.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying account usage information on the display screen of the consumer computing device, wherein the account usage information is indicative of at least consumption of network bandwidth capacity via the community Wi-Fi network for an account corresponding to the consumer computing device.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

measuring, with the consumer computing device, network bandwidth capacity available at the geographic location of the consumer computing device; and

transmitting feedback information pertaining to the network bandwidth capacity available at the geographic location measured by the consumer computing device, wherein the network coverage data is based at least in part upon the feedback information from the consumer computing device and disparate consumer computing devices.

13. A consumer computing device, comprising:

a display screen;

at least one processor; and

memory that comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including;

receiving network coverage data indicative of geographic coverage of a community Wi-Fi network, wherein the community Wi-Fi network comprises sharer computing devices in differing local networks that share respective network bandwidth capacities, wherein the geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network is a union of geographic coverages of the sharer computing devices that share the network bandwidth capacities available to the differing local networks, and wherein the community Wi-Fi network is accessible by the consumer computing device within the union of the geographic coverages of the sharer computing devices using the network bandwidth capacities of the differing local networks shared by the sharer computing devices; and

displaying visual information on the display screen of the consumer computing device that specifies one or more types of applications available for execution by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network at a geographic location of the consumer computing device.

14. The consumer computing device of claim 13, wherein the visual information comprises an overlay on a map displayed on the display screen of the consumer computing device.

15. The consumer computing device of claim 13, the memory further comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including:

displaying visual information on the display screen of the consumer computing device that specifies one or more types of applications unavailable for execution by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network at the geographic location of the consumer computing device.

16. The consumer computing device of claim 13, the memory further comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including:

receiving information specifying a desired type of application for execution by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network, wherein the desired type of application is unavailable for execution by the consumer computing device at the geographic location via the community Wi-Fi network; and

displaying a suggestion on the display screen of the consumer computing device to enable the desired type of application to be executed.

17. The consumer computing device of claim 13, the memory further comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including:

executing, utilizing the consumer computing device at the geographic location, at least one of the one or more types of applications via the community Wi-Fi network.

18. The consumer computing device of claim 13, the memory further comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including:

measuring, with the consumer computing device, network bandwidth capacity available at the geographic location of the consumer computing device; and

transmitting feedback information pertaining to the network bandwidth capacity available at the geographic location measured by the consumer computing device, wherein the network coverage data is based at least in part upon the feedback information from the consumer computing device and disparate consumer computing devices.

19. A consumer computing device, comprising:

a display screen;

at least one processor; and

memory that comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including;

receiving network coverage data indicative of geographic coverage of a community Wi-Fi network, wherein the community Wi-Fi network comprises sharer computing devices in differing local networks that share respective network bandwidth capacities, wherein the geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network is a union of geographic coverages of the sharer computing devices that share the network bandwidth capacities available to the differing local networks, and wherein the community Wi-Fi network is accessible by the consumer computing device within the union of the geographic coverages of the sharer computing devices using the network bandwidth capacities of the differing local networks shared by the sharer computing devices; and

displaying a map on the display screen of the consumer computing device, the map comprising visual information that specifies the geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network in a geographic region that comprises a geographic location of the consumer computing device.

20. The consumer computing device of claim 19, the memory further comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including:

displaying visual information on the display screen of the consumer computing device that specifies one or more types of applications available for execution by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network at a geographic location of the consumer computing device.