Traffic Management of Third Party Applications

• US 20140036697A1
• Filed: 07/31/2012
• Published: 02/06/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile Innovations LLC (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Annan, Brandon C., Belser, John E., Otten, Tammy M., Sullivan, Ryan P.
• Granted Patent: US 9,413,839 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/32 by discarding or delaying data units, e.g. packets or frames
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72454 according to context-related or environment-related conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]

Abstract

A proxy server for routing traffic between a mobile device and a network, comprising at least one processor, a memory, and a traffic monitoring application stored in the memory that, when executed by the at least one processor, monitors a plurality of mobile device installed applications that run on the mobile device and the mobile device installed applications'"'"' traffic, analyzes traffic usage for the mobile device installed applications, identifies the mobile device installed applications responsible for traffic that is excessive or unnecessary as determined by the mobile device'"'"'s service provider, and blocks, delays, or reports the excessive and unnecessary traffic without interrupting the mobile device'"'"'s communications.

Claims

1. A proxy server for routing traffic between a mobile device and a network, comprising:

at least one processor;

a memory; and

a traffic monitoring application stored in the memory that, when executed by the at least one processor,

monitors a plurality of mobile device installed applications that run on the mobile device and the mobile device installed applications'"'"' traffic;

analyzes traffic usage for the mobile device installed applications;

identifies the mobile device installed applications responsible for traffic that is excessive or unnecessary as determined by the mobile device'"'"'s service provider; and

blocks, delays, or reports the excessive and unnecessary traffic without interrupting the mobile device'"'"'s user communications.

2. The proxy server of claim 1, wherein the excessive and unnecessary traffic that is blocked, delayed, or reported without interrupting the mobile device'"'"'s user communications corresponds to one or more applications that run background processes on the mobile device without the mobile device'"'"'s user knowing.

3. The proxy server of claim 1, wherein the excessive and unnecessary traffic that is blocked, delayed, or reported without interrupting the mobile device'"'"'s user communications does not include traffic for one or more applications that are operated by the mobile device'"'"'s user.

4. The proxy server of claim 1, wherein the traffic monitoring application further:

monitors a plurality of second mobile device installed applications that run on a second mobile device and the second mobile device installed applications'"'"' traffic;

identifies the second mobile device installed applications responsible for excessive or unnecessary traffic on the second mobile device; and

blocks, delays, or reports the excessive and unnecessary traffic on the second mobile device without interrupting the second mobile device'"'"'s user communications on the second mobile device.

5. The proxy server of claim 4, wherein the mobile device installed applications, the mobile device installed applications'"'"' traffic, the second mobile device installed applications, and the second mobile device installed applications'"'"' traffic are monitored and the excessive and unnecessary traffic on the mobile device and the second mobile device is blocked, delayed, or reported if the mobile device and the second mobile device elect to register with the proxy server for traffic management.

6. The proxy server of claim 1, wherein an Internet Protocol (IP) address is appended to Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) proxy settings of the mobile device to register the mobile device with the proxy server, and wherein traffic is routed between the mobile device and the network at the proxy server using IP addresses that indicate the applications for the traffic.

7. A method for managing traffic of a mobile device communicating with a network, comprising:

monitoring by a traffic monitoring application executed on at least a processor a plurality of mobile device installed applications that run on the mobile device and traffic associated with the mobile device installed applications;

analyzing traffic usage for the mobile device installed applications;

identifying the mobile device installed applications responsible for traffic that is excessive or unnecessary according to the mobile device'"'"'s service carrier; and

promoting the reduction of traffic for the identified mobile device installed applications that are not used by the user, that run without the user knowing, or both.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the mobile device installed applications comprise third party applications provided by a plurality of developers other than the mobile device'"'"'s manufacturer or a service provider of the network.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein monitoring the mobile device installed applications comprises monitoring the number of running mobile device installed applications and the amount of outgoing and incoming traffic of the mobile device installed applications.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the mobile device installed applications are monitored during one or more monitored time periods that correspond to peak traffic time on the network.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the mobile device installed applications are monitored during low activity operation conditions of the mobile device, including when the mobile device'"'"'s display screen is turned off, the mobile device'"'"'s accelerometer shows no movement, the mobile device'"'"'s battery usage is relatively low, or the mobile device'"'"'s Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) connectivity is tuned off.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein analyzing the traffic usage comprises:

aggregating traffic for different mobile device installed applications and different monitored time periods to obtain average traffic usage patterns for the mobile device installed applications on the mobile device; and

determining the impact of mobile device installed applications and related traffic usage on the network.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein promoting the reduction of traffic for the identified mobile device installed applications comprises blocking traffic that corresponds to a list of blocked applications, traffic that does not correspond to a list of allowed applications, or both.

14. The method of claim 7, wherein promoting the reduction of traffic for the identified mobile device installed applications comprises queuing and delaying the transmission of the traffic to reduce the frequency of transmitting the traffic.

15. The method of claim 7, wherein promoting the reduction of traffic for the identified mobile device installed applications comprises:

contacting the identified mobile device installed applications'"'"' developers to work on improving the mobile device installed applications'"'"' performance to reduce excessive traffic; and

offering the developers incentives, discouraging the developers, or both to improve the mobile device installed applications'"'"' performance.

16. The method of claim 7, wherein the method is implemented by the traffic monitoring application that runs on the mobile device and that is part of an interface and applications pack.

17. The method of claim 7, wherein the method is implemented by one or more servers of the network, and wherein the one or more servers aggregate traffic for a plurality of mobile devices and consider the load on one or more cell towers when analyzing the traffic usage for the mobile devices.

18. A traffic management server for promoting traffic management between a mobile device and a network, comprising:

at least one processor;

a memory; and

a traffic monitoring application stored in the memory that, when executed by the at least one processor,

receives a plurality of reports from a plurality of mobile phones about a plurality of installed applications that run on the mobile phones and related traffic;

aggregate the information in the reports from the mobile phones;

analyze overall traffic usage for the installed applications based on the reports;

determine whether one or more of the installed applications and related traffic should be considered for more analysis and traffic management; and

send the mobile phones with the determined installed applications an option to join a traffic management service to optimize the traffic and network usage by controlling or limiting the traffic.

19. The traffic management server of claim 18, wherein the traffic monitoring application further:

monitors the installed applications that run on the mobile devices that acknowledge the option to join the traffic management service;

identifies the installed applications responsible for excessive or unnecessary traffic on the mobile devices that acknowledge the option to join the traffic management service; and

manages the excessive and unnecessary traffic to reduce traffic usage without reducing the users'"'"' quality of service, experience, and communications.

20. The traffic management server of claim 19, wherein the excessive and unnecessary traffic is managed to reduce traffic usage without forcing the users to switch their mobile devices from a first selected connection of choice into a less secure or more limited connection.