Patent ID: 9363391
Filing Date: 2016-06-07
CPC Classification: H04M,H04W

Claim Text:
1. A method of operating a wireless communication device between a Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) link and a Long Term Evolution (LTE) link, the method comprising: the wireless communication device wirelessly transferring a WiFi beacon signal and wirelessly receiving an access request indicating a user identifier from a user computer; the wireless communication device determining when the user identifier has sufficient usage credit, then wirelessly exchanging WiFi signals including user communications with the user computer over the WiFi link and wirelessly exchanging LTE signals including the user communications with a wireless network over the LTE link; the wireless communication device decrementing the usage credit for the user identifier based on the exchange of the WiFi signals including the user communications and wirelessly transferring usage credit consumption over the LTE link for delivery to an authorization server; after decrementing the usage credit, the wireless communication device determining if the user identifier has the sufficient usage credit, and when the user identifier does not have the sufficient usage credit, then wirelessly transferring a credit request over the LTE link for delivery to the authorization server; the wireless communication device wirelessly receiving an additional usage credit for the user identifier from the authorization server over the LTE link and exchanging additional wireless WiFI signals including additional user communications with the user computer and exchanging additional wireless LTE signals including the additional user communications over the LTE link; and the wireless communication device decrementing the additional usage credit for the user identifier based on the exchange of the additional wireless WiFI signals including the additional user communications and wirelessly transferring additional usage credit consumption over the LTE link for delivery to the authorization server.