Patent ID: 8015271

Claim:
A method comprising: providing, by one or more provisioning servers, a web interface to a user, the web interface allowing the user to submit a request for a new service from a service provider; receiving, by the provisioning servers, the request for the new service submitted by the user through the web interface; determining, by the provisioning servers and from the request for the new service submitted by the user through the web interface, an Internet Protocol (IP) address for a user access device on a network; formulating, by the provisioning servers, a lease query that includes the IP address for the user access device as determined from the request for the new service submitted by the user through the web interface; sending, by the provisioning servers, the lease query to a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, wherein the user access device is located at a Media Access Control (MAC) address on the network and the DHCP server has, when provisioning an existing service that is different than the new service, previously allocated the IP address to the user access device and has mapped the IP address to the MAC address of the user access device; receiving, by the provisioning servers, the MAC address for the user access device in response to the lease query; and provisioning, by the provisioning servers, the new service using the MAC address.