Regulating network service levels provided to communication terminals through a LAN access point

• US 20080316960A1
• Filed: 06/22/2007
• Published: 12/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property, Inc. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Daigle, Brian
• Granted Patent: US 8,184,538 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2876 Handling of subscriber policies group policies management H04L41/0893
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/24 Negotiation of communication capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/20 Negotiating bandwidth
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/18 Processing of user or subscriber data, e.g. subscribed services, user preferences or user profiles; Transfer of user or subscriber data

Abstract

Network services provided by network access points to a plurality of communication terminals are regulated. Subscriber information that defines which of a plurality of network service levels is allocated to the communication terminals is maintained by at least one network service provider system. Network service levels that are provided by the network access points to the communication terminals are regulated in response to the subscriber information. A network access point may thereby be regulated to provide different levels of network service to different communication terminals. Moreover, a communication terminal may obtain a level of network service that may be based upon that provided by a home network service provider with which it is registered while the communication terminal is roaming through a different network service provider.

Claims