Patent ID: 9306798
Filing Date: 2016-04-05
CPC Classification: H04L,H04N

Claim Text:
1. A system for aggregate monitoring of Internet Protocol television (IPTV) channel activity across user-based groups of private computer networks, the system comprising: a plurality of monitoring servers installed on a respective plurality of private networks; each private network being a local area network (LAN) at a respective hospitality establishment and including one or more switches being intermediate distribution frame (IDF) switches having ports connected to display devices located in guest rooms of the hospitality establishment; each private network further including at least one monitoring server operable to query the switches on the private network in order to obtain multicast stream information from the switches on the private network; the multicast stream information indicating which of the ports of the switches are joined to which of one or more multicast streams; and a central server coupled to each of the monitoring servers for receiving the multicast stream information from the plurality of monitoring servers via a wide area network (WAN); the central server comprising a storage device storing information pertaining to a plurality of users, the information respectively associating each of the users with a group of one or more of the private networks; wherein the central server includes one or more processors operable to: