Methods and Systems for Providing Multiple Network Services By Way of a Single Machine-to-Machine Gateway Device

• US 20140095728A1
• Filed: 09/28/2012
• Published: 04/03/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/28/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.), Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.), Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Zhu, Lily, Khurjekar, Aparna, Wong, Theresa
• Granted Patent: US 9,271,106 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/105 Multiple levels of security
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/16 Gateway arrangements

Abstract

An exemplary method includes a machine-to-machine (“M2M”) solutions provider subsystem 1) maintaining data representative of a plurality of distinct data processing schemes associated with a plurality of network services, 2) receiving a plurality of data streams from a single M2M gateway device, 3) identifying a data stream included in the plurality of data streams as corresponding to a network service included in the plurality of network services, and 4) processing, in response to the identifying, the data stream in accordance with a data processing scheme associated with the network service and included in the plurality of distinct data processing schemes. Corresponding methods and systems are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

maintaining, by a machine-to-machine (“

M2M”

) solutions provider subsystem, data representative of a plurality of distinct data processing schemes associated with a plurality of network services;

receiving, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem, a plurality of data streams from a single M2M gateway device;

identifying, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem, a data stream included in the plurality of data streams as corresponding to a network service included in the plurality of network services; and

processing, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem in response to the identifying, the data stream in accordance with a data processing scheme associated with the network service and included in the plurality of distinct data processing schemes.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem, an additional data stream included in the plurality of data streams as corresponding to an additional network service included in the plurality of network services; and

processing, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem in response to the identifying of the additional data stream as corresponding to the additional network service, the additional data stream in accordance with an additional data processing scheme associated with the additional network service and included in the plurality of distinct data processing schemes.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the processing of the data stream in accordance with the data processing scheme associated with the network service comprises billing a first entity associated with the network service for data included in the data stream;

the processing of the additional data stream in accordance with the additional data processing scheme associated with the additional network service comprises billing a second entity associated with the additional network service for data included in the additional data stream; and

the second entity is different than the first entity.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the processing of the data stream in accordance with the data processing scheme associated with the network service comprises providing a first quality of service level for the data stream;

the processing of the additional data stream in accordance with the additional data processing scheme associated with the additional network service comprises providing a second quality of service level for the additional data stream; and

the second quality of service level is different than the first quality of service level.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the processing of the data stream in accordance with the data processing scheme associated with the network service comprises providing a first security level for the data stream;

the processing of the additional data stream in accordance with the additional data processing scheme associated with the additional network service comprises providing a second security level for the additional data stream; and

the second security level is different than the first security level.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the network service is an M2M network service and the additional network service is a non-M2M network service.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the processing of the data stream in accordance with the data processing scheme associated with the network service comprises:

identifying an entity responsible for payment for the network service; and

billing the identified entity for data included in the data stream.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the processing of the data stream in accordance with the data processing scheme associated with the network service comprises:

identifying a quality of service level associated with the network service; and

providing the identified quality of service level for the data stream.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the processing of the data stream in accordance with the data processing scheme associated with the network service comprises:

identifying a security level associated with the network service; and

providing the identified security level for the data stream.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the maintaining of the data representative of the plurality of distinct data processing schemes comprises:

assigning a distinct service identifier to the network service; and

linking the distinct service identifier to the data processing scheme associated with the network service within a database.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the identifying of the data stream as corresponding to the network service comprises:

identifying an attribute associated with the data stream; and

determining that the attribute corresponds to the distinct service identifier assigned to the network service.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the attribute comprises at least one of an access point name (“

APN”

) associated with the data stream, a destination Internet protocol (“

IP”

) address associated with the data stream, a phone number associated with the data stream, a transmission protocol associated with the data stream, and an open standard identifier associated with the data stream.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving of the plurality of data streams from the single M2M gateway device comprises concurrently receiving the plurality of data streams from the single M2M gateway device by way of a single wireless connection.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the single wireless connection is a Long Term Evolution (“

LTE”

) connection.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the data stream is provided by an end point communicatively coupled to the M2M gateway device, and wherein the method further comprises:

receiving, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem, an additional data stream intended for the end point from a computing device that provides the network service; and

processing, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem, the additional data stream in accordance with the data processing scheme.

16. The method of claim 1, embodied as computer-executable instructions on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium.

17. A method comprising:

concurrently receiving, by a machine-to-machine (“

M2M”

) solutions provider subsystem, an M2M data stream and a non-M2M data stream from a single M2M gateway device by way of a single wireless connection;

identifying, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem, the M2M data stream as corresponding to an M2M network service and the non-M2M data stream as corresponding to a non-M2M network service;

identifying, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem, a first entity responsible for payment for the M2M network service and a second entity responsible for payment for the non-M2M network service; and

billing, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem, the identified first entity for data included in the M2M data stream and the identified second entity for data included in the non-M2M data stream.

18. The method of claim 17, embodied as computer-executable instructions on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium.

19. A method comprising:

establishing, by a machine-to-machine (“

M2M”

) gateway device, a wireless connection with an M2M solutions provider subsystem to provide an M2M network service to an M2M end point communicatively coupled to the M2M gateway device;

receiving, by the M2M gateway device, M2M data from the M2M end point;

transmitting, by the M2M gateway device, the M2M data to the M2M solutions provider subsystem by way of the wireless connection; and

leveraging, by the M2M gateway device, the wireless connection to provide a non-M2M network service by way of the wireless connection to a non-M2M end point communicatively coupled to the M2M gateway device.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the leveraging of the wireless connection to provide the non-M2M network service by way of the wireless connection to the non-M2M end point comprises:

receiving non-M2M data from the non-M2M end point; and

transmitting the non-M2M data to the M2M solutions provider subsystem by way of the wireless connection.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the transmitting of the non-M2M data and the transmitting of the M2M data are performed concurrently.

22. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

routing, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem, the M2M data to an M2M customer computing device subsystem; and

routing, by the M2M solutions provider subsystem, the non-M2M data to a non-M2M content provider subsystem.

23. The method of claim 20, embodied as computer-executable instructions on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium.

24. A system comprising:

a data processing facility configured to maintain data representative of a plurality of distinct data processing schemes associated with a plurality of network services; and

a data stream management facility communicatively coupled to the data processing facility and configured to

receive a plurality of data streams from a single M2M gateway device, and

identify a data stream included in the plurality of data streams as corresponding to a network service included in the plurality of network services;

wherein the data processing facility is further configured to process, in response to the identification, the data stream in accordance with a data processing scheme associated with the network service and included in the plurality of distinct data processing schemes.