Management of community Wi-Fi network

• US 9,603,028 B2
• Filed: 12/31/2013
• Issued: 03/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: MacDonald, David Neil, Goyal, Piyush, Sharma, Saumaya, Guday, Shai, Kuehnel, Thomas Werner, Singh, Vikas, Lamba, Triptpal Singh, Ford, Brent Edward, Hathaway, Jonathan
• Primary Examiner(s): Shin, Kyung H
• Application Number:
  US14/144,786
• Publication Number:
  US 20150188800A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,176 Days
• Field of Search: 455/456.2, 455/456.1, 709/224, 701/408, 370/254, 370/351
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2854 Wide area networks, e.g. public data networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/18 Network planning tools
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/04 Arrangements for maintaining operational condition
• 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 4/08 User group management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]

Abstract

Various technologies described herein pertain to managing and accessing a community Wi-Fi network. The community Wi-Fi network can include sharer computing devices in differing local networks that share respective network bandwidth capacities with consumer computing devices. Feedback information pertaining to network bandwidth capacity available at different geographic locations covered by the community Wi-Fi network can be collected and evaluated to enable generation of maps for visualizing coverage of the community Wi-Fi network. A consumer computing device can display a map that includes visual information pertaining to the geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network relative to a geographic location of the consumer computing device. Community Wi-Fi network coverage can be analyzed to detect geographic locations at which network coverage is desirably added; network coverage can be added by incentivizing a potential sharer computing device to opt in to share network bandwidth capacity or controlling beamforming of sharer computing device(s).

Claims

1. A method of operating a consumer computing device, comprising:

receiving, at the consumer computing device, network coverage data indicative of geographic coverage of a community Wi-Fi network, wherein the community Wi-Fi network comprises sharer computing devices in differing local networks that share respective network bandwidth capacities, wherein the geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network is a union of geographic coverages of the sharer computing devices that share the network bandwidth capacities available to the differing local networks, and wherein the community Wi-Fi network is accessible by the consumer computing device within the union of the geographic coverages of the sharer computing devices using the network bandwidth capacities of the differing local networks shared by the sharer computing devices; and

displaying a map on a display screen of the consumer computing device, the map comprising visual information that specifies the geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network in a geographic region that comprises a geographic location of the consumer computing device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying visual information on the display screen of the consumer computing device that specifies one or more types of applications available for execution by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network at geographic locations within the geographic region.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying visual information on the display screen of the consumer computing device that specifies one or more types of applications unavailable for execution by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network at geographic locations within the geographic region.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an indication that causes execution of a desired type of application by the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network;

determining whether a threshold network bandwidth capacity for the desired type of application is available for the consumer computing device at the geographic location of the consumer computing device via the community Wi-Fi network;

when the threshold network bandwidth capacity is determined to be available for the consumer computing device at the geographic location via the community Wi-Fi network, initiating the execution of the desired type of application; and

when the threshold network bandwidth capacity is determined to be unavailable for the consumer computing device at the geographic location via the community Wi-Fi network, displaying a suggestion on the display screen of the consumer computing device for achieving the threshold network bandwidth capacity.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the suggestion specifies a disparate geographic location for repositioning of the consumer computing device, wherein the threshold network bandwidth capacity is available for the consumer computing device at the disparate geographic location via the community Wi-Fi network.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the map displayed on the display screen comprises the visual information that specifies the geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network in the geographic region for a service level of the consumer computing device, wherein traffic is prioritized across the community Wi-Fi network as a function of different service levels.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

measuring, with the consumer computing device, network bandwidth capacity available at the geographic location of the consumer computing device; and

transmitting, to a community management system, feedback information pertaining to the network bandwidth capacity available at the geographic location measured by the consumer computing device, wherein the network coverage data is based at least in part upon the feedback information from the consumer computing device and disparate consumer computing devices.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising executing a client application on the consumer computing device to enable the consumer computing device to access the community Wi-Fi network.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying geographic usage information on the map on the display screen of the consumer computing device, wherein the geographic usage information is indicative of geographic locations at which the consumer computing device previously consumed network bandwidth capacity of the community Wi-Fi network.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying account usage information on the display screen of the consumer computing device, wherein the account usage information is indicative of at least consumption of network bandwidth capacity via the community Wi-Fi network for an account corresponding to the consumer computing device.

11. A community management system, comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory that comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including;

receiving feedback information that specifies network bandwidth capacity of a community Wi-Fi network available at differing geographic locations covered by the community Wi-Fi network, wherein the community Wi-Fi network comprises sharer computing devices in different local networks that share respective network bandwidth capacities with consumer computing devices; and

generating network coverage data indicative of geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network based upon the feedback information, wherein the geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network is a union of geographic coverages of the sharer computing devices that share the network bandwidth capacities available to the different local networks, and wherein the community Wi-fi network is accessible by the consumer computing devices within the union of the geographic coverages of the sharer computing devices using the network bandwidth capacities of the different local networks shared by the sharer computing devices.

12. The community management system of claim 11, the memory further comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including:

transmitting the network coverage data to a consumer computing device.

13. The community management system of claim 11, the memory further comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including:

evaluating the network coverage data of the community Wi-Fi network to detect a geographic location at which network coverage is desirably added;

identifying a potential sharer computing device positioned in the geographic location; and

providing an incentive to the potential sharer computing device, wherein an account corresponding to the potential sharer computing device is credited according to the incentive responsive to a selection to opt in the potential sharer computing device to share a network bandwidth capacity of the potential sharer computing device with the consumer computing devices as part of the community Wi-Fi network.

14. The community management system of claim 13, wherein the incentive is a function of the geographic location and the network coverage at the geographic location.

15. The community management system of claim 13, wherein the incentive varies as a function of time.

16. The community management system of claim 11, the memory further comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including:

controlling beamforming of a given sharer computing device opted in to share network bandwidth capacity of the given sharer computing device as a function of the network coverage data of the community Wi-Fi network.

17. The community management system of claim 11, the memory further comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including:

prioritizing traffic for a first service level over traffic for a second service level across the community Wi-Fi network, wherein a first subset of the consumer computing devices are allocated the first service level and a second subset of the consumer computing devices are allocated the second service level.

18. The community management system of claim 11, wherein the network coverage data specifies one or more types of applications available for execution by the consumer computing devices across the geographic coverage of the community Wi-Fi network.

19. The community management system of claim 11, the memory further comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including:

evaluating the network coverage data of the community Wi-Fi network to detect a geographic location at which network coverage is desirably added;

identifying a potential sharer computing device positioned in the geographic location; and

transmitting, to the potential sharer computing device, information to cause opting in of sharing a network bandwidth capacity of the potential sharer computing device as part of the community Wi-Fi network.

20. A computing device, comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory that comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform acts including;

receiving, from a community management system, an incentive to opt in to share a network bandwidth capacity of the computing device with consumer computing devices as part of a community Wi-Fi network, wherein the community Wi-Fi network comprises a mesh of sharer computing devices in disparate local networks that share respective network bandwidth capacities with the consumer computing devices of the community Wi-Fi network;

joining the computing device to the community Wi-Fi network responsive to a selection to opt in the computing device to share the network bandwidth capacity of the computing device; and

sharing the network bandwidth capacity of the computing device with the consumer computing devices of the community Wi-Fi network;

wherein an account corresponding to the computing device is credited according to the incentive responsive to the selection to opt in the computing device to share the network bandwidth capacity of the computing device with the consumer computing devices as part of the community Wi-Fi network, wherein the selection is effectuated while the incentive remains unexpired.