Smart online services presence in a cellular network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9654896-B2
Application number	US-201113240186-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 22, 2011
Priority date	Sep 22, 2011
Publication date	May 16, 2017
Grant date	May 16, 2017

Abstract

A method and system for providing on-line services to a user from a services provider over a wireless cellular network. The cellular network is located between the user and the services provider, and a distributed computer system such as the Internet is located between the services provider and the cellular network for transmitting data between the services provide and the cellular network. In one embodiment, the services provider transmits software and operating characteristics over the distributed computer system to the cellular network, and the cellular network installs this software on one or more nodes of the network. When a user connects to the cellular network for services from the service provider, the network operates the software on the one or more nodes in accordance with the operating characteristics, to provide one or more services from this one or more nodes to the user from the service provider.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system for providing on-line services to a user from a service provider over a wireless cellular telephone network, the system comprising:
the wireless cellular telephone network located in series between the user and the service provider, and including a multitude of communications nodes, one or more of said nodes including a hosting facility to host and run software images supplied by the service provider and deployed by the wireless cellular telephone network; and
a distributed computer system located between the service provider and the wireless cellular telephone network for transmitting data between the service provider and the wireless cellular telephone network;
the wireless cellular telephone network comprising one or more processing units configured for:
operating a manager of the wireless cellular telephone network for receiving the software images and operating characteristics over the distributed computer system from the service provider, for installing said software images in a container on said hosting facility of said one or more nodes of the wireless cellular telephone network to give the service provider a presence in the wireless cellular telephone network, for providing information to instruct the container when to deploy and un-deploy the software images, instruct the container on amount of resources to set aside for the container, and provide authorization and authentication credentials to the software images, and for managing the software images on the hosting facility to support the service provider; and
when a user connects to the wireless cellular telephone network for services from the service provider, operating said software images on said hosting facility of the wireless cellular telephone network in accordance with said operating characteristics, to provide one or more services of the service provider to the user from said hosting facility of the wireless cellular telephone network, including when the user sends to the wireless cellular telephone network data packets addressed to the service provider, the wireless cellular telephone network extracting the data packets sent from the user and addressed to the service provider and diverting the extracted data packets in the wireless cellular telephone network to the hosting facility for the service provider in the wireless cellular telephone network, wherein data processing capabilities provided to the service provider at said hosting facility of the wireless cellular telephone network are available to the user, and the user interacts with the service provider's presence on the wireless cellular telephone network.

2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:
the wireless cellular network includes an edge network for receiving or processing signals or data from the user, and said one or more nodes are in the edge network; and
said edge network includes a wireless transmitter/receiver base station for transmitting signals to and receiving signals from the user, and a gateway device for routing communications from the user to the distributed computing system.

3. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the installing includes testing the software images for compliance with specified requirements.

4. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:
the operating characteristic identify specific portions of the software images for be executed for specific users at specific times and at specific locations; and
the operating characteristics instruct activation of the software images at specified times and for specified durations, and the operating characteristics instruct the wireless cellular telephone network to deactivate and remove the software images at specified times.

5. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the installing the software images on the one or more nodes includes:
testing the software images to determine whether said software images comply with specified requirements of the wireless cellular telephone network; and
provisioning the software images to operate within the wireless cellular telephone network and in said one or more nodes.

6. The system according to claim 1 , wherein:
the service provider has an internet address;
said packets addressed to the service provider are addressing the service provider's point of presence on the internet;
the wireless cellular telephone network diverting the extracted data packets includes the wireless cellular telephone network diverting the extracted data packet to said one more nodes; and
new packets containing responses from a processing of the extracted packets are passed to the wireless cellular telephone network, and the wireless cellular telephone network injects the new packets back to a stream of transmission the wireless cellular telephone network sends to a mobile communication device of the user.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the managing the software images on the hosting facility to support the service provider includes monitoring for deployment conditions including user context, analytics results, provider requirements, time and geography.

8. An article of manufacture comprising:
at least one non-transitory computer readable hardware medium having computer readable program code logic to provide on-line services to a user from a service provider over a wireless cellular telephone network, wherein the wireless cellular telephone network is located in series between the user and the service provider, the wireless cellular telephone network including a multitude of communications nodes, one or more of said nodes including a hosting facility to host and run software images supplied by the service provider and deployed by the wireless cellular telephone network, and a distributed computer system is located between the service provider and the wireless cellular telephone network for transmitting data between the service provide and the wireless cellular telephone network, the computer readable program code logic, when executing, performing following:
operating a manager of the wireless cellular telephone network for receiving the software images and operating characteristics over the distributed computer system from the service provider, for installing said software images in a container on said hosting facility of said one or more nodes of the wireless cellular telephone network to give the service provider a presence in the wireless cellular telephone network, for providing information to instruct the container when to deploy and un-deploy the software images, instruct the container on amount of resources to set aside for the container, and provide authorization and authentication credentials to the software images, and for managing the software images on the hosting facility to support the service provider; and
when a user connects to the wireless cellular telephone network for services from the service provider, operating said software images on said hosting facility of said one or more nodes of the wireless cellular telephone network, in accordance with said operating characteristics, to provide one or more services of the service provider to the user from said hosting facility of the wireless cellular telephone network, including when the user sends to the wireless cellular telephone network data packets addressed to the service provider, the wireless cellular telephone network extracting the data packets sent from the user and addressed to the service provider and diverting the extracted data packets in the wireless cellular telephone network to the hosting facility for the service provider in the wireless cellular telephone network, wherein data processing capabilities provided to the service provider at said one or more nodes of the wireless cellular telephone ne

Assignees

• Agrawal Dakshi
• Bisdikian Chatschik
• Verma Dinesh C
• Zerfos Petros
• IBM

Inventors

• Agrawal Dakshi
• Bisdikian Chatschik
• Verma Dinesh C
• Zerfos Petros

Classifications

• H04W4/00 Primary

  Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor · CPC title