Method and apparatus for real-time collection of information about application level activity and other user information on a mobile data network

• US 8,935,381 B2
• Filed: 11/26/2008
• Issued: 01/13/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ribbon Communications Operating Company, Inc. (Ribbon Communications, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Zettics Incorporated. (Ribbon Communications, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kalavade, Asawaree
• Primary Examiner(s): ZHANG, SHIRLEY X
• Application Number:
  US12/324,675
• Publication Number:
  US 20090138447A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,239 Days
• Field of Search: 709223-224, 725 9- 22, 705/7.29
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0205 Location or geographical consideration
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/065 related to network devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/12 Network monitoring probes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• 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: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals

Abstract

Method and apparatus for real-time collection of information about application level activity and other user information on a mobile data network. A collector device communicates with a router in a mobile data network so that the collector can obtain substantially all of the data coming from the router in real-time and correlate the data to specific users. The collector device comprises a user identity subsystem, filter, and data transfer subsystem. The user identity subsystem inspects the data for source IP addresses and correlates them to corresponding mobile phone numbers. The filter then inspects the collected data and retains only application-level data. Lastly, the data transfer subsystem transfers the filtered data to a data reporting and analysis system.

Claims

1. A collector device for real-time, transparent monitoring of application-level data activity on a mobile data network, the collector device being in communication with a corresponding mobile data network router, the collector device comprising:

an input coupled to the network router and configured to receive substantially all data communications from the network router, wherein the data communications include application-level data relating to specific users'"'"' use of applications on corresponding user mobile devices;

a user identity subsystem, coupled to the input, for correlating phone numbers associated with the user mobile devices with IP addresses and the application-level data, wherein the user identity subsystem modifies the correlation of phone numbers to IP addresses and application-level data in response to the detection of new IP address assignments for the corresponding phone number;

a filter subsystem configured to;

receive the substantially all data communications from the network router and retain only application-level data;

identify session requests in the application-level data from the specific users'"'"' use of the applications on the user mobile devices;

parse at least one of a uniform resource locator (URL) and a user agent in each of the session requests to identify specific destinations requested therein;

using information parsed from at least one of the URL and the user agent to classify a content type of a webpage associated with the content requested in each of the session requests; and

a demographics subsystem to determine demographic information to associate with each of the specific user'"'"'s phone numbers, the demographics module determines the demographic information using the correlated phone numbers.

2. The collector device of claim 1 wherein the collector is connected to the mobile data network router at a physical segment before communications have been received by any subsequent gateway or proxy.

3. The collector of claim 2 wherein a layer 2 tap is used to split a physical segment connected to an output of the router and to provide the data communications to the collector device.

4. The collector device of claim 1 wherein a layer 7 switch is used to provide data communication to the collector device.

5. The collector device of claim 1 wherein the collector is connected to a port mirror of the router.

6. The collector device of claim 1 wherein the user identity subsystem monitors RADIUS communications within at least a portion of the mobile data network to correlate IP addresses with mobile phone numbers.

7. The collector device of claim 6 wherein the identity subsystem detects new session request messages to identify new IP addresses and detects specific network messages to determine corresponding mobile phone numbers.

8. The collector device of claim 1 wherein the filter subsystem inspects packetized data on the network to detect layer 7 protocols used by each packet, the protocols including at least one of HTTP, WAP, RTSP, and SMPP.

9. The collector device of claim 1 further including a user location subsystem for using the IP address and phone number to determine and monitor the physical location of each user.

10. The collector device of claim 1 wherein the demographics subsystem determines demographic information using a carrier for the mobile data network.

11. The collector device of claim 1 wherein the demographic information includes information about a specific user.

12. The collector device of claim 1 wherein the demographic information includes information about a specific user mobile device.

13. The collector device of claim 1 further including logic to collect out-of-band information including at least one of log files from the mobile data network, client-generated data, subscriber data, Short Messaging Service Center data.

14. The collector device of claim 1 further including logic to detect whether application-level data is an advertisement including an image.

15. The collector device of claim 1 further comprising a data reporting and analysis system configured to augment each application-level event with at least one of i) an amount of user time associated with the event, and ii) an amount of data consumed in connection with the event, by performing session state analysis.