Patent ID: 8385282

Claim:
A networked computing system, comprising: a base station of a first type having a first coverage area; a plurality of base stations of a second type, each base station of the second type having a coverage area that is smaller than the first coverage area; a user equipment; and a data communications network facilitating data communications amongst the base station of the first type, the base stations of the second type, and the user equipment, wherein the base stations of the second type include a first base station of the second type that is configured to: detect an ancillary communication between the user equipment and the base station of the first type within the data communications network, the ancillary communication being an uplink data communications initiation signal transmitted from the user equipment to the base station of the first type in order to establish a signal connection between the user equipment and the base station of the first type; measure one or more characteristics associated with the ancillary communication upon detecting the ancillary communication; and transmit the one or more measured characteristics to a controller device in order to enable the controller device to make network communications usage decisions using the one or more measured characteristics based on one or more network resource usage rules.