Patent ID: 8561143

Claim:
A method of operating a communication system comprising: in a wireless cellular network, wirelessly exchanging voice and data with an authenticated wireless communication device; in the wireless cellular network, determining if the authenticated wireless communication device is operating in a proxy mode; when the authenticated wireless communication device is operating in the proxy mode, wirelessly receiving an access request from the authenticated wireless communication device that indicates an identity of an unauthenticated wireless communication device; when the authenticated wireless communication device is not operating in the proxy mode, wirelessly receiving a request to switch the authenticated wireless communication device to the proxy mode and wirelessly receiving an access request from the authenticated wireless communication device that indicates the identity of the unauthenticated wireless communication device; in a server system, processing the access request to determine when a threshold number of allowable unauthenticated devices is reached for the authenticated wireless communication device, and when the threshold number is not reached, storing the identity of the unauthenticated wireless communication device for subsequent wireless cellular network access; and in the wireless cellular network, wirelessly exchanging data with the unauthenticated wireless communication device responsive to the stored identity of the unauthenticated wireless communication device.