Patent ID: 9300550
Filing Date: 2016-03-29
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method for generating a network usage profile defining at least an estimation of a set of customer devices available for use in communicating with a customer-side network node located at a customer side of an access network, the set of customer devices comprising a set of active devices currently in operative communication with the customer-side network node and a set of inactive devices not currently in operative communication with the customer-side network node, the method comprising: receiving device data from the set of active devices currently in operative communication with the customer-side network node; processing the device data to determine an active devices profile comprising a device type for each of the set of active devices, wherein processing the device data comprises parsing a device type indicator from at least one of a browser type, a user-agent, or a data protocol, the device type indicator being parsed from the device data and estimating the device type as a function of the browser type; receiving a timestamp temporally relating to the device data received in the receiving device data step; receiving a node identifier identifying the customer-side network node; associating the timestamp and the node identifier with the active devices profile to generate a current devices-by-node record, the current devices-by-node record defining the set of active devices communicatively coupled with the customer-side network node identified by the node identifier at the time identified by the timestamp; logging the current devices-by-node record in a devices-by-node log, the devices-by-node log comprising a plurality of devices-by-node records generated over a time duration; analyzing the devices-by-node log to generate a devices-by-node profile as a function of the plurality of devices-by-node records generated over at least a portion of the time duration, the devices-by-node profile defining at least an estimation of the set of customer devices available for use in communicating with the customer-side network node during the at least a portion of the time duration and a set of data handling capabilities for each of the set of consumer devices, wherein the network usage profile comprises the devices-by-node profile; and targeting content over the access network to at least one of the set of active devices as a function of the devices-by-node profile such that the at least one of the set of active devices is capable of handling the content according to the set of data handling capabilities.