Service delivery through wireless access systems

• US 10,159,102 B2
• Filed: 12/06/2016
• Issued: 12/18/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise S.A. (China Huaxin Post & Telecommunication Economy Development Center)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise S.A. (China Huaxin Post & Telecommunication Economy Development Center)
• Inventors: Helbert, Emmanuel
• Primary Examiner(s): Huq, Obaidul
• Application Number:
  US15/370,460
• Publication Number:
  US 20170215214A1
• Time in Patent Office: 742 Days
• Field of Search: 370310, 370328, 370338
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/141 Setup of application sessions admission control or resource allocation in data switching networks H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/11 Allocation or use of connection identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]

Abstract

A communication terminal comprising: a radio interface and a WLAN communication module configured to: generate and send an association request; receive an association response; and establish IP connectivity. The communication terminal also comprises a service selection module configured to select a computer-implemented service to be accessed; and a service execution control module configured to execute software application code implementing the selected computer-implemented service. The WLAN communication module is further configured to: in response to receiving a service selection command from the service selection module, generate an association request comprising a service identifier which identifies the selected service; parse the association response received through the radio interface to detect a link carried in the association response, wherein the link points to a network address of an application server suitable for delivering application data corresponding to the selected computer-implemented service; and initiate data communication with the network address for downloading application data.

Claims

1. A wireless access system comprising:

a radio interface;

a data repository storing a directory of available services comprising a set of service records, wherein each service record comprises a service identifier and a network address of an application server suitable for delivering application data corresponding to a computer-implemented service;

a control module configured to;

parse an association request received through the radio interface to detect a service identifier carried in the association request;

look up the directory of available services for retrieving a service record matching the detected service identifier;

generate and send an association response to a source of the association request through the radio interface, wherein the association response comprises a link to the network address found in the matching service record; and

provide network connectivity between the source of the association request and the application server associated to the network address,

wherein;

each service record further comprises a service descriptor for describing the service to an end-user, and

the control module is further configured to broadcast beacon signals through the radio interface, wherein;

the beacon signals comprise a service advertisement for a service record of the directory of available services, and

the service advertisement comprises the service identifier and the service descriptor found in the service record.

2. The wireless access system of claim 1, wherein the radio interface is configured to send and receive radio signals in accordance with an IEEE 802.11 specification, wherein the association request, association response and beacon signals are configured in accordance with the IEEE 802.11 specification.

3. The wireless access system of claim 2, wherein the beacon signal comprises the service advertisement in a Vendor Specific field of the beacon signal.

4. The wireless access system of claim 1, wherein the service record further comprises at least one of a traffic requirement of the computer-implemented service, a Quality-of-Service requirement of the computer-implemented service, an operating-system requirement of the computer-implemented service, a version number of the computer-implemented service, a security level of the computer-implemented service and a price of the computer-implemented service;

and wherein the service advertisement further comprises at least one of the traffic requirement, Quality-of-Service requirement, operating-system requirement, version number, security level and price found in the service record.

5. The wireless access system of claim 1, wherein the control module is further configured to:

record a source IP address and source MAC address found in the association request; and

filter out a subsequent data packet received through the radio interface and intended to the network address of the application server in response to detecting that the data packet does not originate from the recorded source IP address and source MAC address.

6. The wireless access system of claim 1, wherein the link to the network address found in the matching service record points to a local address in the wireless access system, wherein the control module is further configured to operate as a reverse-proxy between the application server and the source of the association request.

7. The wireless access system of claim 1, wherein the application data comprises software application code encoding a web application downloadable and executable by a web browser.

8. The wireless access system of claim 1, wherein the application data comprises software application code encoding a software application downloadable and executable by a computer operating system.