System and method for enabling wireless internet access in public areas

The computerized inventive system enables both the wireless internet service providers and conventional wired internet service providers to redirect users to partner websites through appropriate affiliate links and to enable the aforesaid service providers to participate in revenue sharing with internet content providers. Using the inventive methodology and the inventive system, the wireless internet service providers and conventional wired internet service providers are able to offer free internet services to general public and receive a share of the revenue earned by the content providers.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to networking technology and more specifically to a system and method for enabling wireless internet access in public locations.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART

In the recent years several different types of wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) provide Wi-Fi services for most of today's 10,000 plus HotSpots in the U.S. But the high, $20.00 to $40.00 monthly subscription costs of most of these HotSpots limit their attractiveness to wide segments of population. As the result of that, HotSpot users represent less than a third of the nation's total 30.0M laptop users. Elimination of subscription fees would increase the WIFI user pool substantially.

On the other hand, major existing internet content providers offer profit-sharing partnerships to other internet entities to encourage such other entities to send users to the content provider's portals. If WI-FI providers were able to receive revenue from the aforementioned internet content providers, the need for the WISP to charge users subscription fees would have been substantially eliminated. Such revenue would be paid by the content providers to WI-FI service providers for enabling WI-FI users to access content providers' revenue-generation resources.

In accordance with a conventional partnership scheme, to differentiate the traffic coming from partner websites from all other internet traffic, the aforementioned content providers establish special entry points (hereinafter also referred to as “affiliate links”) to their internet portals and assign those entry points to their partners. The partners direct user traffic from their own websites to the content provider websites using these entry points. The content providers, in turn, monitor how many users got forwarded by the participating partners through their respective entry points and distribute the revenue to the partners based on their usage.

Unfortunately, the technology does not exist that would permit the wireless service providers and conventional internet service providers to partner with internet content providers in accordance with the methodology described above. In particular, the internet service providers simply enable user's access to the internet and are unable to forward users to specific internet locations, such as described entry points.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The inventive methodology is directed to methods and systems that substantially obviate one or more of the above and other problems associated with conventional techniques for enabling conventional and wireless internet service.

One aspect of the inventive concept is a method, computer programming product and a computerized system for redirecting user request to a partner web service. The inventive system includes a central processing unit executing a proxy application and a database storing information on partner web services and associated affiliate links. The proxy application is operable to receive connection requests from network clients, and to determine if the received connection requests are associated with the partner web service on the internet. If the redirector subsystem determines that the received connection requests are associated with the partner web service, is redirects the received requests to the partner web service via an affiliate link.

In accordance with a feature of the invention, in response to redirection of the received connection request to the partner web service via an affiliate link, the partner web service provides a payment to the operator of the computerized system.

In accordance with another feature of the invention, providing a payment involves generating a payment record within the partner's system.

In accordance with yet another feature of the invention, a payment subsystem is provided, such that in response to redirection of the received connection request to the partner web service via an affiliate link, the payment subsystem authorizes a payment to the operator of the internet service provider hosting the at least one network client.

In accordance with yet another feature of the invention, a payment record database is provided, such that authorizing a payment involves generating a payment record and storing this record in the payment record database.

In accordance with yet another feature of the invention, a billing subsystem and a billing record database are provided, such that in response to redirection of the received connection request to the partner web service via an affiliate link, the billing subsystem generates a billing record to the partner web service and stores this record in the billing record database.

Another aspect of the inventive concept is a method for sharing revenue among internet service provider and internet content provider. In accordance with the inventive method, a partnership relationship is established between the internet service provider and internet content provider. The user requests from users hosted by the internet service provider are then redirected to the internet service provider via affiliate links. At least apportion of the revenue of the internet content provider is distributed to the internet service provider in accordance with the number redirected user requests.

In accordance with a feature of the invention, the revenue is distributed to the internet service provider by the operator of a redirecting service, which receives the revenue from the internet content provider.

In accordance with another feature of the invention, the operator of a redirecting service retains at least a portion of the received revenue.

Another aspect of the inventive concept is a method for providing a free wireless internet service. The inventive method involves providing users with infrastructure for wireless internet access. The aforesaid infrastructure is provided by an internet service provider. The inventive method further involves generating revenue from online activities of the users of the free wireless internet service by content, media, advertising or publisher companies; and sharing the generated revenue with the aforesaid internet service provider. Because of this revenue sharing, the internet service provider is able not to charge the users for the use of the wireless internet service and thereby offer the wireless internet service free or at a reduced rate.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The inventive system enables both the wireless internet service providers and conventional wired internet service providers to use the aforesaid entry point mechanism to redirect users to partner websites and thereby to participate in shared content revenue partnerships with internet content providers. Using the inventive methodology and the inventive system, the wireless internet service providers and conventional wired internet service providers would be able to offer free internet services to users and receive a share of the revenue from the content providers. The inventive system connects Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to frequently accessed Internet content revenue and allows ISPs as well as individual Internet users to receive a share of online advertising and content revenues.

FIG. 1, illustrates an exemplary embodiment of the networking system employing the inventive concept. In that figure, network clients101,102and103connect to the network via gateway104via connections107, which may be either wireless or wired connection, or any combination thereof. The clients101-103and the gateway104may implement either wireless or wired connection protocols including 802.11a-e, well known in the art. The gateway104receives requests from the clients and forwards those requests to DNS/Proxy/Redirector105, which monitors the user requests, determines if any of the user requests are directed to partner websites and, if so, redirects the matching user requests to the partner websites through appropriate affiliate links, triggering the payment routine of the associated content provider110. To this end, the content provider110may have a payment records database111, which is updated with a record specifying a payment to an affiliate, every time a user uses enters the content provider's website through the corresponding affiliate link. The content provider110makes periodic payments to its affiliates based on the information stored in the payment records database111.

In another embodiment of the inventive system, upon determining that the user requests to access a partner website, the inventive system redirects the user to the partner website through an appropriate affiliate link and generates a billing record to be sent to the partner content provider110. For this purpose, an embodiment of the inventive system shown inFIG. 2includes payment/billing record database112, which stores all such records. All the other components and subsystems of the system shown inFIG. 2are equivalent to the components of the system ofFIG. 1, which are designated with the same numerals. In addition, the redirecting event could prompt the inventive system to record a credit to the appropriate internet service provider that hosted the requesting user. This credit information may also be stored in the payment/billing record database112.

FIG. 3illustrates an exemplary illustrative embodiment of the inventive DNS/Proxy/Redirector module105. This module intercepts requests204sent by the internet service provider users and either simply transmits the requests without any modification or modifies the requests redirecting the user to the partner content provider through the designated affiliate links, thereby triggering the payment mechanism. The DNS/Proxy/Redirector module105includes networking subsystem201which handles the incoming and outgoing network traffic and forwards user requests to the proxy application202, as shown by numeral206. The proxy application202examines the content of the request to determine whether the request involves one or more of the resources of an affiliate content provider. For this purpose, the DNS/Proxy/Redirector module105includes a database203, which stores information on the identity of the affiliate content providers. The proxy application202makes queries to that database to retrieve the matching content provider information.

If the user request is not directed to the affiliated provider, as determined by the proxy application, the DNS/Proxy/Redirector simply forwards the request to its intended destination,207,205. On the other hand, if the user request does contain matching partner information, the proxy application re-writes the request redirecting the user to the content provider through an appropriate affiliate link. The redirection information may be also stored in the database203.

To enable the network connection route108between the internet service provider114and the inventive DNS/Proxy/Redirector105, the internet service provider114and the DNS/Proxy/Redirector105must exchange their internet addresses and register them with one another. Once the address exchange is complete, the system begins filtering traffic. When users access participating content sites, the inventive software directs them thru the partnership/affiliate link provided by the partners, thus generating revenue. When users go to non-participating sites the software lets them thru without monetizing the traffic.

It will be appreciated by those of skill in the art that the inventive system is not limited to handling traffic from only one internet service provider. The inventive system is able to aggregate thousands of already developed Internet networks using a single network server.

As will be appreciated by persons of skill in the art, the inventive concept allows revenue collected by internet content providers to support the creation and expansion of metropolitan wireless access. The technology allows the aggregation of thousands of existing ISP/WISP networks and the expansion of these networks through the revenue generated from user traffic by frequently visited websites, including, without limitation, search engines, portals, resource centers, online services, entertainment & business media, publisher warehouses and other popular online locations.

Another embodiment of the invention involves a method for providing a free wireless internet service. The inventive method involves providing users with infrastructure for wireless internet access. The aforesaid infrastructure is provided by an internet service provider. The inventive method further involves generating revenue from online activities of the users of the free wireless internet service by content, media, advertising or publisher companies; and sharing the generated revenue with the aforesaid internet service provider. Because of this revenue sharing, the internet service provider is able not to charge the users for the use of the wireless internet service and thereby offer the wireless internet service free or at a reduced rate.

FIG. 4is a block diagram that illustrates an embodiment of a computer/server system400upon which an embodiment of the inventive methodology may be implemented. The system400includes a computer/server platform401, peripheral devices402and network resources403.

The computer platform401may include a data bus404or other communication mechanism for communicating information across and among various parts of the computer platform401, and a processor405coupled with bus401for processing information and performing other computational and control tasks. Computer platform401also includes a volatile storage406, such as a random access memory (RAM) or other dynamic storage device, coupled to bus404for storing various information as well as instructions to be executed by processor405. The volatile storage406also may be used for storing temporary variables or other intermediate information during execution of instructions by processor405. Computer platform401may further include a read only memory (ROM or EPROM)407or other static storage device coupled to bus404for storing static information and instructions for processor405, such as basic input-output system (BIOS), as well as various system configuration parameters. A persistent storage device408, such as a magnetic disk, optical disk, or solid-state flash memory device is provided and coupled to bus401for storing information and instructions.

Computer platform401may be coupled via bus404to a display409, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT), plasma display, or a liquid crystal display (LCD), for displaying information to a system administrator or user of the computer platform401. An input device410, including alphanumeric and other keys, is coupled to bus401for communicating information and command selections to processor405. Another type of user input device is cursor control device411, such as a mouse, a trackball, or cursor direction keys for communicating direction information and command selections to processor404and for controlling cursor movement on display409. This input device typically has two degrees of freedom in two axes, a first axis (e.g., x) and a second axis (e.g., y), that allows the device to specify positions in a plane.

An external storage device412may be connected to the computer platform401via bus404to provide an extra or removable storage capacity for the computer platform401. In an embodiment of the computer system400, the external removable storage device412may be used to facilitate exchange of data with other computer systems.

The invention is related to the use of computer system400for implementing the techniques described herein. In an embodiment, the inventive management device DNS/Proxy/Redirector system105may reside on a machine such as computer platform401. In an embodiment, the management device locator server106may also be deployed on a machine such as computer platform401. According to one embodiment of the invention, the techniques described herein are performed by computer system400in response to processor405executing one or more sequences of one or more instructions contained in the volatile memory406. Such instructions may be read into volatile memory406from another computer-readable medium, such as persistent storage device408. Execution of the sequences of instructions contained in the volatile memory406causes processor405to perform the process steps described herein. In alternative embodiments, hard-wired circuitry may be used in place of or in combination with software instructions to implement the invention. Thus, embodiments of the invention are not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry and software.

The term “computer-readable medium” as used herein refers to any medium that participates in providing instructions to processor405for execution. The computer-readable medium is just one example of a machine-readable medium, which may carry instructions for implementing any of the methods and/or techniques described herein. Such a medium may take many forms, including but not limited to, non-volatile media, volatile media, and transmission media. Non-volatile media includes, for example, optical or magnetic disks, such as storage device408. Volatile media includes dynamic memory, such as volatile storage406. Transmission media includes coaxial cables, copper wire and fiber optics, including the wires that comprise data bus404. Transmission media can also take the form of acoustic or light waves, such as those generated during radio-wave and infra-red data communications.

Various forms of computer readable media may be involved in carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions to processor405for execution. For example, the instructions may initially be carried on a magnetic disk from a remote computer. Alternatively, a remote computer can load the instructions into its dynamic memory and send the instructions over a telephone line using a modem. A modem local to computer system400can receive the data on the telephone line and use an infra-red transmitter to convert the data to an infra-red signal. An infra-red detector can receive the data carried in the infra-red signal and appropriate circuitry can place the data on the data bus404. The bus404carries the data to the volatile storage406, from which processor405retrieves and executes the instructions. The instructions received by the volatile memory406may optionally be stored on persistent storage device408either before or after execution by processor405. The instructions may also be downloaded into the computer platform401via Internet using a variety of network data communication protocols well known in the art.

The computer platform401also includes a communication interface, such as network interface card413coupled to the data bus404. Communication interface413provides a two-way data communication coupling to a network link414that is connected to a local network415. For example, communication interface413may be an integrated services digital network (ISDN) card or a modem to provide a data communication connection to a corresponding type of telephone line. As another example, communication interface413may be a local area network interface card (LAN NIC) to provide a data communication connection to a compatible LAN. Wireless links, such as well-known 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g and Bluetooth may also used for network implementation. In any such implementation, communication interface413sends and receives electrical, electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital data streams representing various types of information.

Network link413typically provides data communication through one or more networks to other network resources. For example, network link414may provide a connection through local network415to a host computer416, or a network storage/server417. Additionally or alternatively, the network link413may connect through gateway/firewall417to the wide-area or global network418, such as an Internet. Thus, the computer platform401can access network resources located anywhere on the Internet418, such as a remote network storage/server419. On the other hand, the computer platform401may also be accessed by clients located anywhere on the local area network415and/or the Internet418. The network clients420and421may themselves be implemented based on the computer platform similar to the platform401.

Local network415and the Internet418both use electrical, electromagnetic or optical signals that carry digital data streams. The signals through the various networks and the signals on network link414and through communication interface413, which carry the digital data to and from computer platform401, are exemplary forms of carrier waves transporting the information.

Computer platform401can send messages and receive data, including program code, through the variety of network(s) including Internet418and LAN415, network link414and communication interface413. In the Internet example, when the system401acts as a network server, it might transmit a requested code or data for an application program running on client(s)420and/or421through Internet418, gateway/firewall417, local area network415and communication interface413. Similarly, it may receive code from other network resources.

The received code may be executed by processor405as it is received, and/or stored in persistent or volatile storage devices408and406, respectively, or other non-volatile storage for later execution. In this manner, computer system401may obtain application code in the form of a carrier wave.

It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to any specific types of wireless or wired network protocols. The requisite network configuration may be achieved using a variety of known networking protocols.