Patent ID: 6151628
Filing Date: 2000-11-21
Classification: H04L,H04M,H04W

Abstract:
A method of connecting a source of digital data to a computer network, the source of digital data communicating over a wireless transmission medium to a wireless service carrier, the wireless service carrier multiplexing said digital data onto a high speed digital telephone line, the method comprising the steps of:receiving said digital data at a communications device coupling said source of digital data to said computer network, said communications device having a telephone line interface and a local area or wide area packet-switched computer network interface;said communications device extracting, from said digital data, network access authentication data comprising at least one of the following: (a) a telephone number called by said source of digital data, or (b) a telephone number associated with said source of digital data;said communications device transmitting said authentication data over said local area or wide area computer network connected to said communications device to a network authentication server for said computer network;determining, in said network authentication server, from said transmitted authentication data whether said remote user is permitted to access said computer network;said authentication server responsively notifying said communications device the results of said step of determining and authorizing said source of data to access said computer network if said step of determining results in a positive response.