Patent ID: 7720098

Claim:
A method of dynamic bandwidth allocation among a plurality of wireless device clients of a wireless wide-area network (WWAN), wherein the clients are within wireless signal reception of each other, and wherein each client has an allocated bandwidth for communicating over the WWAN, the method comprising: forming a pool of at least two clients wherein an unused portion of a client bandwidth is available for sharing by at least one client in the pool; identifying a communication manager to manage traffic between the pool clients and the WWAN, wherein each client has access, if needed, to a entire client's own allocated bandwidth, wherein each client has access to at least a portion of other clients' unused bandwidths, and wherein the communication manager controls sharing of unutilized bandwidths and flow of data by identifying clients of the pool with excess bandwidth and choosing at least some identified clients of the pool to participate in the communication process; and in an instance of transmission, the communication manager receives data from a data transmitting client of the pool, prepares the received data for distribution among pool clients chosen for reception, and distributes the prepared data among the chosen pool clients for transmission over the WWAN; and in an instance of reception, the communication manager obtains data portions received by clients chosen for reception from the WWAN, assembles obtained data for transmission to a destination pool client, and transmits assembled data to the destination pool client.