System and method for providing network support services and premises gateway support infrastructure

• US 10,812,283 B2
• Filed: 06/12/2019
• Issued: 10/20/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kip Prod P1 LP
• Original Assignee: Kip Prod P1 LP
• Inventors: Ansari, Amir, Cowgill, George A., Nicholls, Leon A., Ramayya, Jude P., Masina, Ramprakash, McQuarters, Alvin R., Raissyan, Atousa
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Minh Chau
• Application Number:
  US16/439,501
• Publication Number:
  US 20190363903A1
• Time in Patent Office: 496 Days
• Field of Search: 709225
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/042 using digital processors G05B19/05 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/2642 Domotique, domestic, home control, automation, smart house
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/64 Browsing; Visualisation therefor generation of a list or set of audio data G06F16/638
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/68 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19656 Network used to communicate with a camera, e.g. WAN, LAN, Internet
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/22 Procedures used during a speech recognition process, e.g. man-machine dialogue
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 2015/223 Execution procedure of a spoken command
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2803 Home automation networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2807 Exchanging configuration information on appliance services in a home automation network arrangements for maintenance or administration involving network analysis for automatically determining the actual topology of a network H04L41/12; hardware or software tools for network management using graphical user interfaces H04L41/22; address allocation H04L61/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2812 describing content present in a home automation network, e.g. audio video content retrieval from the Internet G06F16/95
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2814 Exchanging control software or macros for controlling appliance services in a home automation network arrangements for maintenance or administration involving configuration of the network and network elements H04L41/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2816 Controlling appliance services of a home automation network by calling their functionalities arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station; in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom H04Q9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2818 from a device located outside both the home and the home network access arrangements H04L12/2856; for remote control or remote monitoring of applications H04L67/025; arrangements for transmitting signals characterised by the use of a wireless eletrical link G08C17/00; telephonic communication systems adapted for combination with remote control systems H04M11/007
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2849 Audio/video appliances
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0803 Configuration setting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/80 : Actions related to the user profile or the type of traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/83 : based on usage prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/25 : Routing or path finding in a switch fabric
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4552 : Lookup mechanisms between a plurality of directories; Synchronisation of directories, e.g. metadirectories
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/02 : for separating internal from external traffic, e.g. firewalls
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 : for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0876 : based on the identity of the terminal or configuration, e.g. MAC address, hardware or software configuration or device fingerprint
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 : for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 : for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/102 : Gateways arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways, H04L12/66
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 : Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1108 : Web based protocols, e.g. webRTC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 : Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 : Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 : involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/141 : Setup of application sessions admission control or resource allocation in data switching networks H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 : Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 : using third party service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/325 : in the network layer [OSI layer 3], e.g. X.25 H04L69/16 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/00 : Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD] real-time bi-directional transmission of motion video data H04N7/14 ; broadcast or conference over packet switching networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/40 : Client devices specifically adapted for the reception of or interaction with content, e.g. set-top-box [STB]; Operations thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 : for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/00 : Security arrangements; Authentication; Protecting privacy or anonymity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/033 : of the user plane, e.g. user's traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/0431 : Key distribution or pre-distribution; Key agreement
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/06 : Authentication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/065 : Continuous authentication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/08 : Access security
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/35 : Protecting application or service provisioning, e.g. securing SIM application provisioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 : Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 370/911 : Bridge, e.g. brouter, bus extender

Abstract

A service management system communicates via wide area network with gateway devices located at respective user premises. The service management system remotely manages delivery of application services, which can be voice controlled, by a gateway, e.g. by selectively activating/deactivating service logic modules in the gateway. The service management system also may selectively provide secure communications and exchange of information among gateway devices and among associated endpoint devices. An exemplary service management system includes a router connected to the network and one or more computer platforms, for implementing management functions. Examples of the functions include a connection manager for controlling system communications with the gateway devices, an authentication manager for authenticating each gateway device and controlling the connection manager and a subscription manager for managing applications services and/or features offered by the gateway devices. A service manager, controlled by the subscription manager, distributes service specific configuration data to authenticated gateway devices.

Claims

1. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:

establishing a first communication channel between a control device and one or more endpoint devices at a location;

establishing a second communication channel between the control device at the location and a remote management center that is remote to the location, wherein the remote management center manages home automation programming, via the second communication channel, for the control device;

managing resources of the control device by determining the availability of resources that can be allocated to facilitate execution of multiple application services provided by the control device, wherein the determination of the availability of the resources comprises monitoring for excessive resource utilization by at least one of the one or more endpoint devices; and

maintaining automation of the one or more endpoint devices while the control device is in communication with and interacts with a user endpoint device showing a graphical user interface, wherein the control device locally stores programming based at least in part on one or more user defined configurations provided via the user endpoint device.

2. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein managing the resources of the control device comprises:

determining an amount of required resources for one or more of the application services to execute properly; and

taking corrective measures to free up the amount of required resources.

3. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 2, wherein the corrective measures comprise at least one of:

prioritizing packets,

throttling bandwidth,

performing operations to reduce noise on an RF interface,

freeing up time slices on a TDMA interface, or

any combination thereof.

4. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise performing peer-to-peer type communications between the control device and another device.

5. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 4, wherein the another device is in communication with the remote management center.

6. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the first communication channel includes at least one of a wired network interface, a USB interface, or a wireless interface.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the first communication channel enables communication of information between the one or more endpoint devices and the control device to monitor the location.

8. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the operation of managing the resources of the control device is responsive to communications with the remote management center.

9. A computing system comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more memories storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising;

establishing a first communication channel between a control device and one or more endpoint devices at a location;

establishing a second communication channel between the control device at the location and a remote management center that is remote to the location, wherein the remote management center manages home automation programming, via the second communication channel, for the control device;

managing resources of the control device by allocating resources for execution of multiple application services provided by the control device, wherein the resource management comprises monitoring for excessive resource utilization by at least one of the one or more endpoint devices; and

maintaining automation of the one or more endpoint devices while the control device is in communication with and interacts with a user endpoint device showing a graphical user interface, wherein the control device locally stores programming based at least in part on one or more user defined configurations provided via the user endpoint device.

10. The computing system of claim 9, wherein managing the resources of the control device comprises:

determining an amount of required resources for one or more of the application services to execute properly; and

taking corrective measures to free up the amount of required resources.

11. The computing system of claim 10, wherein the corrective measures comprise at least one of:

prioritizing packets,

throttling bandwidth,

performing operations to reduce noise on an RF interface,

freeing up time slices on a TDMA interface, or

any combination thereof.

12. The computing system of claim 9, wherein the computing system is part of the control device.

13. A method for operating a control device, the method comprising:

establishing a first communication channel between the control device and endpoint devices at a location;

establishing a second communication channel, at least in part over a wide area network, wherein the second communication channel is between the control device at the location and a remote management center, wherein the remote management center manages, via the second communication channel, home automation programming for the control device;

managing resources of the control device by determining the availability of resources that can be allocated to facilitate execution of multiple application services provided by the control device, wherein the determination of the availability of the resources comprises monitoring for excessive resource utilization by at least one of the endpoint devices; and

maintaining automation of one or more of the endpoint devices while the control device is in communication with and interacts with a user endpoint device showing a graphical user interface, wherein the control device locally stores programming based, at least in part, on one or more user defined configurations provided via the user endpoint device.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the home automation programming includes one or more software updates.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the resources comprise CPU capacity or memory.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the first communication channel supports at least one of X10, Z-Wave, or ZigBee communications.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

determining an amount of the resources for one or more applications to execute; and

implementing corrective measures to free up the amount of the resources.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein managing the resources includes at least one of:

prioritizing packets,

throttling bandwidth,

performing operations to reduce noise on an RF interface,

freeing up time slices on a TDMA interface, or

any combination thereof.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein the automation of the one or more endpoint devices includes controlling of operation of at least one of:

a sensor device,

an automatic window,

window blinds,

lighting or a lamp unit,

a digital picture frame,

a web cam, or

any combination thereof.

20. The method of claim 13, wherein the application services include at least one of home automation, home security, or voice control.