Patent ID: 7853705

Claim:
A method for on demand session provisioning comprising: receiving, at a service selection gateway, a first packet from an access gateway, the access gateway having authenticated an identity of a user, the service selection gateway operable to provide the user with access to one or more services, the first packet associated with a selected one of the services; sending an access request to an authorization server from the service selection gateway, the access request identifying the user and requesting authorization to allow the user to access the selected one of the services; creating a temporary user session operable to allow the user to temporarily access the selected one of the services pending authorization; forwarding subsequently received packets while the temporary user session is valid; creating a next temporary user session while waiting for authorization to continue forwarding subsequently received packets; receiving an authorization response from the authorization server, the authorization response comprising a user profile associated with the user, the user profile indicating one or more services that the user is authorized to access; determining whether the authorization response indicates that the user is authorized to access the selected one of the services; creating a permanent user session operable to allow the user to access the selected one of the services if the authorization response indicates that the user is authorized to access the selected one of the services; terminating the temporary user session if the authorization response indicates that the user is not authorized to access the selected one of the services; receiving a request for a change to a next selected service of the one or more services; determining that the user profile indicates that the user is authorized to access the next selected service of the one or more services; and creating a next permanent user session operable to allow the user to access the next selected service of the one or more services.