Patent ID: 8103744
Filing Date: 2012-01-24
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A consumer equipment remote operation system for performing, via a network, remote operation of consumer equipment connected to a home network, the consumer equipment remote operation system comprising: a home gateway that connects the home network to a wide-area network; servers that set network configurations including an address for the home gateway; and a portal server that is installed on the wide-area network; wherein the home gateway includes: a storage unit to store a home management table that manages equipment information on the consumer equipment connected to the home network; an equipment detector that cyclically sends a detection request message along the home network to detect consumer equipment and acquires the equipment information of the detected consumer equipment; an equipment information management unit that performs updating registration of the equipment information on the detected consumer equipments into the home management table; a configuring unit that makes network configurations for newly detected consumer equipments; and an equipment information registration unit that cyclically transmits the equipment information in the home management table, address information of the home gateway, and information of a user to the portal server installed on the wide-area network at a cycle that differs from the cycle at which the equipment detector detects and acquires the equipment information of the detected consumer equipment and a global address of a wide area network side interface of the home gateway is dynamically changed and unknown to the user, wherein the portal server includes: a storage unit that stores an online management table to manage the information, cyclically transmitted from the home gateway, according to each user; a user authorizing unit that receives an authorization request transmitted from a user via the wide-area network; a user-equipment association unit that extracts equipment information, associated with an authorized user, from the online management table; a notation conversion processor that converts the equipment information extracted from the online management table to a notation of high readability; a transmitter that transmits, via the wide-area network, the equipment information that have been changed in notation with a reference address information of the portal server to the user; a controller that receives a remote operation request to a reference address and transfers a remote control request to the home gateway, wherein the reference address information includes an address of the portal server, a code indicating transfer of the operation request to the home gateway, an address of the gateway, and a port number associated to the consumer equipment corresponding to the equipment information.