Arrangement for controlling access to data network

• US 20110310863A1
• Filed: 06/22/2010
• Published: 12/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Shieh, Hugh
• Granted Patent: US 8,917,735 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/338
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2517 using port numbers

Abstract

A soft AP module that is installed in the subscriber device is adapted to assign preselected ports numbers as part of its network address translation process. Those port numbers are registered to be used solely for this purpose, port numbers that are registered to applications that are seldomly used, or port numbers in the range 49152-65535. One or more modules in the service provider'"'"'s facilities analyze the packets that pass through the service provider'"'"'s facilities. Each module detects the aforementioned predetermined port numbers in the analyzed packets and thus identifies the network load that is attributed to devices the employ the W²LANs.

Claims

1. An arrangement that includes a wireless telephone with capability to connect to a data network, and with a module within said telephone that implements access point (AP) function, router and network address translation functions to thereby create a wireless local area network (W²LAN) which, when receiving a packet that from said W²LAN which requests connection to a specified destination address on the data network (requesting device) replaces the LAN source address of said packet with network address of said router and inserts a port number in said packet, the improvement comprising:

said module selects said port number, from a set of pre-chosen port numbers.

2. The arrangement of claim 1 where said data network is the Internet.

3. The arrangement of claim 1 where said modules that selects said port number makes the selection independently of identity of application that said requesting device is executing.

4. The arrangement of claim 1 where said preselected numbers are port numbers that are registered with IRNA for use in W²LAN network address translations.

5. The arrangement of claim 1 where said preselected numbers are between 49152 and 65535.

6. The arrangement of claim 1 where said preselected numbers are port numbers that are registered with IRNA for use by applications that flow through said W²LAN less than 1% of the time.

7. The arrangement of claim 1 where said telephone includes a module for enabling user of said telephone to specify a type for a device that seeks connection to said W²LAN.

8. The arrangement of claim 1 where said telephone includes a module for enabling user of said telephone to allow or disallow connections to said W²LAN device that seeks such connection.

9. The arrangement of claim 1 where said telephone includes a module for enabling user of said telephone to allow access by a device that seeks connection to said W²LAN to said W²LAN, and to specify a type for said device.

10. The arrangement of claim 7 further including a QoS module that controls data flow rates of devices connected to said W²LAN.

11. The arrangement of claim 1 further comprising an element upstream of said module that includes a packet sniffer that:

identifies port number of incoming packets to thereby obtain data pertaining to network load; and

processes said data.

12. The arrangement of claim 11 where said element is between said module and said data network.

13. The arrangement of claim 11 where said processing computes percentage of packets incoming to said base station from W²LANs relative to packets arriving to said base station without traveling through a W²LAN of said W²LANs.

14. The arrangement of claim 11 where said processing focuses on said wireless telephone.

15. The arrangement of claim 11 further comprising a step of network provisioning in response to said processing of said data.

16. The arrangement of claim 11 further comprising a step of modifying service provisioning terms based on said processing of said data.