Patent ID: 7415523

Claim:
A method for enlisting one or more end users in a network environment in which loadbalancing occurs, comprising: enlisting one or more end users in a billing plan associated with network communications; generating a bill associated with one or more of the end users, the bill being based on the billing plan; and facilitating network communications for one or more of the end users in response to the end users being enlisted in the billing plan, wherein the network communications includes a protocol that comprises: receiving a request from an end user for a communications link, the request being used to initiate a communication session; receiving a response communicated to the end user that may establish the communication session, the response being generated by a network node that was selected as a result of a loadbalancing decision; and invoking port-level filtering for the communication session after the response such that separate data and signal pathways are established for selected information associated with the communication session, wherein first and second policy based routers are used to facilitate propagation of information flowing through the data pathway such that an associated loadbalancer does not received information propagating through the data pathway.