Patent ID: 9516579
Filing Date: 2016-12-06
CPC Classification: H04W

Claim Text:
1. A method of sharing a network connection by a cloud-based social bandwidth manager, comprising: receiving from an Internet-connected device, acting as a wireless access point (AP) for a wireless network, a decryption key and a network name corresponding to the wireless network, wherein a beacon broadcasted by the Internet-connected device includes the network name and an encrypted passphrase, and wherein the encrypted passphrase can be decrypted using the decryption key; receiving from the Internet-connected device an indication that a wireless enabled device is an authorized device to associate with the wireless network and share an Internet connection of the Internet-connected device; transmitting to the authorized wireless enabled device the network name and the decryption key, wherein the authorized wireless enabled device is configurable to detect the beacon broadcasted by the Internet-connected device and decrypt the encrypted passphrase included in the beacon using the decryption key and associate with the wireless network using the decrypted passphrase to share the Internet connection of the Internet-connected device; receiving from the Internet-connected device via a cloud-based social bandwidth application installed on the Internet-connected device a first list of candidates that can potentially become authorized wireless enabled devices to associate with the wireless network and share the Internet connection of the Internet-connected device; receiving from the wireless enabled device via a cloud-based social bandwidth application installed on the wireless enabled device a second list of candidates that can potentially share their network connections with the wireless enabled device; determining a filtered list of candidates based on the first list of candidates and the second list of candidates; and sending the filtered list of candidates to the Internet-connected device such that each candidate on the filtered list of candidates can be authorized or un-authorized to associate with the wireless network and share the Internet connection of the Internet-connected device.