Patent ID: 8863267

Claim:
A system for filtering requests to a service access gateway comprising: a service access gateway, executing on a computer, including a computer readable medium and processor, providing access to a subscriber network that provides services to subscriber equipment connected to the subscriber network; one or more external applications provided by one or more service providers, wherein said one or more external applications make requests for said services provided by the subscriber network, for a customer identified by an identifier, wherein the identifier is included in each said request and extracted therefrom through the service access gateway for routing the requested services to the customer, and wherein the identifier is masked and mapped through an external lookup; wherein the service access gateway is operable to control access to said services of the subscriber network by said external applications by performing steps comprising maintaining a plurality of service classes, each said service class being an artifact with methods and properties, wherein at least one of the service classes is configured using a configuration file that includes references to the service providers, the external applications, the services on the subscriber network, and rate and quota restrictions on service usage for the customer, filtering the requests via a plurality of interceptors, identifying the service class associated with the customer from the plurality of service classes using an in-memory filter that includes indications of associations between customers and service classes, obtaining the rate and quota restrictions for the customer from the configuration file of the service class, and current usage counts associated with the customer, and controlling the requests based on the current usage counts and the rate and quota restrictions.