Patent ID: 8243739

Claim:
A method comprising: deploying a broadband wireless network including at least one data transmission node for connecting a plurality of CPE units to an access point for the Internet; wherein network data traffic passes through the data transmission node and the CPE units; wherein there is a wireless data link at least in part between the data transmission node and the CPE units; connecting the CPE units to the access point for the Internet through the data transmission node so that data streams flow between the CPE units and the Internet: provisioning the CPE units with at least one network provisioning system; wherein data flows between the CPE units to the access point for the Internet have at least the attributes of bandwidth and quality of service, wherein the bandwidth and quality of service is at least in part affected by the prioritization or queuing of the data streams passing through the CPE units so that the CPE units can at least in part control network traffic to and from the CPE units; using a gateway unit included in the data transmission node to establish an authorized data path between individual ones of the CPE units and the access point at least in part in response to instructions received from the network provisioning system; the CPE units performing authorization, authentication, and data stream prioritization, so that the CPE units can be individually authorized and authenticated by the network provisioning system and wherein the CPE units are provisioned by the network provisioning system with one or more parameters controlling at least one attribute of data stream prioritization performed by the CPE units; further wherein the gateway unit included in the data transmission node and used to establish the authorized data path between the CPE units and the access point is not required to perform data stream queuing to control the flow of data between the CPE units and the Internet; further wherein the management and configuration of the network is managed centrally from the network provisioning system and authorization, authentication, data stream prioritization or queuing is accomplished through the operation of the CPE units; and initially deploying the broadband wireless network with at least one gateway unit and at least one network provisioning system, and adding CPE units to the network substantially incrementally so that the capability to control the network data traffic is added to the broadband wireless network substantially incrementally as opposed to being a capability required by the gateway unit when the network is initially deployed, wherein historical data of added CPE units is examined to predict when a hardware capacity of the at least one gateway unit will be reached and automatically scheduling an upgrade of the at least one gateway unit based on the prediction.