Patent ID: 8886756

Claim:
A method of exchanging data between a user equipment (UE) and an application server in a wireless communications network, the UE configured to connect to both a wireless local area network (WLAN) and a wireless wide area network (WWAN), the application server being positioned within the WWAN behind a WWAN firewall and the WLAN including a WLAN network address translation (NAT) component and firewall such that the UE and the application server do not have a persistent data connection over the WLAN, comprising: exchanging data between the UE and the application server over the WWAN during a WWAN communication session; determining to upload a file from the UE to the application server over the WLAN based on one or more session parameters; obtaining, at the UE, WLAN connection information associated with a connection between the UE and the WLAN; transmitting the WLAN connection information to the application server over the WWAN; receiving, in response to the transmission, an indication that the application server has punched at least one hole in the WWAN firewall for file transfers from the UE over the WLAN; and uploading, in response to the indication, the file to the application server over the WLAN through the at least one hole punched in the WWAN firewall.