Internet connection system

• US 8,234,364 B2
• Filed: 09/24/2003
• Issued: 07/31/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/22/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Infrontia Corporation (NEC Corporation)
• Inventors: Ooki, Yasuomi, Kobayashi, Yoshikazu
• Primary Examiner(s): Bengzon, Greg C
• Application Number:
  US10/668,260
• Publication Number:
  US 20050261915A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,233 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224, 709/245, 713/176, 705/32, 705/34, 370/468, 370/352, 370/353
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0605 Supply or demand aggregation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2856 Access arrangements, e.g. Internet access asynchronous transfer mode networks H04L12/5601; broadband local area networks H04L12/2801; optical access or distribution networks H04Q11/0067; access to open networks H04L12/5691; digital subscriber line end-user equipment and bit-level processing of data on a PSTN-based network H04M11/00; home network gateways H04L12/2834; wireless access networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2898 Subscriber equipments DSL modems H04M11/062; cable modems H04L12/2801
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/22 Bandwidth or usage-sensitve billing

Abstract

In an internet connection system for connecting a terminal in each of a plurality of predetermined locations to internet accessed by the terminal, each location, in which a terminal in communication is provided, is discriminated. The used communication band is recorded for each location, and a communication fee is determined based on the used communication band recorded for each location. The communication extent of the access line connected via the gateway is compared for each location, and the terminal is connected to internet via the gateway, to which a less communication extent access line is connected.

Claims

1. An internet connection system, comprising:

a plurality of wireless LAN base stations, each located in a corresponding predetermined location;

a wireless terminal located in each of the predetermined locations, each wireless terminal wireless LAN connected to a sub-plurality of the wireless LAN base stations, one of the sub-plurality of wireless LAN base stations located in the same predetermined location as the wireless terminal and the other of the sub-plurality of wireless LAN base stations located in a different location,

wherein each of the wireless LAN base stations is respectively connected to the internet via a corresponding gateway and a corresponding access line connected to the gateway, and

wherein the wireless LAN base stations, wireless terminals and gateway are arranged to measure a communication speed from each of the wireless terminals to the internet through each of the sub-plurality of wireless LAN base stations to which the wireless terminal is wireless LAN connected, and are arranged to selectively connectively connect the wireless terminals to the internet through the gateway and through the wireless LAN base station of the sub-plurality of wireless LAN base stations having the highest measured communication speed,

and a charging server, connected to the common gateway, arranged to record a communication band usage for each of the terminals indicating a quantity of communications between each of the terminals and the internet, based on the unique location identifiers within the communications, and arranged to generate a communication fee data unique to each of the wireless terminals, based on a ratio of the recorded communication band usage for the wireless terminal associated with the data to a total of the recorded communication band usage of all of the wireless terminals,

wherein the gateway and the terminals are arranged to assign a preset maximum communication speed for each location, and are arranged to detect a communication band sum for each location, representing a sum of communications generated by all terminals associated with the location, and are arranged to set, in response to the detected communication band sum exceeding the maximum communication speed, a communication operation of all of the terminals associated with the location to a waiting state and to resume the communication operation of all of the terminals in the location when the detected communication band sum becomes lower than the maximum communication speed for the location.

2. The internet communication system according to claim 1, wherein the gateway and the terminals are arranged to assign a quantity of communication bands to each of the predetermined locations, and are arranged to re-assign a quantity of the communication bands assigned to a predetermined location to another of the predetermined locations, and are arranged to generate a use fee data based on said re-assigning.

3. The internet communication system according to claim 1, wherein each of the terminals are arranged to include a MAC address and to generate communication reflecting the MAC address, and

wherein the gateway includes a register to store authorized MAC addresses for each of the predetermined locations, and

wherein the gateway is arranged to enable communications between each of the terminals and the internet based on the MAC address of the communicating terminal being one of the stored authorized MAC addresses, and

wherein the gateway is arranged to detect and store for each of the predetermined locations the total communication band usage of all the terminals having authorized MAC addresses associated with the location, and to detect and store, for each of the locations, the ratio of the total communication band usage of the terminals having authorized MAC addresses associated with the location to the total communication band usage of all the terminals having authorized MAC addresses associated for any of the locations, whereby distributions of the ratios are used for fee computation.

4. The internet communication system of claim 1, wherein the locations are rooms.