Patent ID: 8838070

Claim:
A method of providing communication services to one or more mobile devices comprising: registering into a first communication network using a first user credential to determine user location information and establishing a first data communication connection; utilizing the first data communication connection to set up an IP connection with a user credential management server; requesting a second user credential from among a pool of user credentials based on the location information; registering into a second communication network using the second user credential and establishing a second data communication connection, wherein registering into the second communication network using the second user credential comprises authenticating the second user credential with the second communication network and associating the second user credential with a portable device, thereby allowing the portable device to make connections between the one or more mobile devices and the second communication network; and tethering the one or more mobile devices to the second communication network using one or more connections established using the second user credential wherein the first and second user credentials have corresponding first and second service metrics associated with the user location information, the method further comprising requesting the second credential only when the second service metric is larger than the first service metric.