Patent ID: 7606156

Claim:
A method for aggregating, sharing and dynamically routing and allocating bandwidth from a plurality of wired and wireless networks that are geographically disbursed over a wide area, and providing some or all of the aggregated bandwidth to any user on an on-demand basis, the method comprising the steps of: developing and updating a network table that comprises a list of nearby RCGs, their bandwidth capabilities over local, remote and wireless connections, and their location with respect to a requesting RCG; determining an optimum amount of bandwidth needed for an immediate data transfer needs of the requesting RCG; determining which of the nearby RCGs should be contacted for access to unused bandwidth to support a transfer of the requesting RCG, based upon their unused local bandwidth capacity, and a distance and a number of hops between the RCGs and the requesting RCG; sending a request to the supporting RCGs asking for use of a portion of the unused bandwidth; receiving responses from the supporting RCGs with information about how much bandwidth each selected RCG can share; selecting which of the supporting RCGs to use for optimal use of needed bandwidth; contacting the selected RCGs with control information for sending data to the requesting RCG; sending packets of the data from the selected RCGs to the requesting RCG; reassembling the packets of the data at the requesting RCG; and relinquishing the bandwidth of each of the selected RCGs.