Patent ID: 7420956

Claim:
A system supporting distribution and aggregation of multimedia information via a broadband access gateway, the system comprising: a gateway communicatively coupled to a broadband network and at least one wireless interface, wherein the broadband network comprises one or more of a digital subscriber line (DSL) network, a cable network, a satellite network, the Internet and/or a cellular network comprising one or more of a global system for mobile communications (GSM) network, a time division multiple access (TDMA) network, a code division multiple access (CDMA) network, and/or a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) network, wherein the at least one wireless interface is compliant with one or more of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and/or 802.11n standards, and/or the Bluetooth V1.2 or compatible personal area network (PAN) specification, the gateway capable of selectively exchanging multimedia information among the at least one wireless interface and the broadband network, and of communicating with a plurality of access devices via the at least one wireless interface; the gateway capable of collecting, from at least a portion of the plurality of access devices, information identifying at least one storage resource available for the storage of multimedia information; the gateway capable of receiving, from one of the plurality of access devices, a user request for storage of multimedia information; the gateway capable of selecting from the at least one storage resource, aggregate storage capacity for storing the multimedia information using the collected information; the gateway capable of causing storage of the multimedia information using the selected aggregate storage capacity; the gateway capable of receiving one or both of information identifying an access device and/or information identifying a user; and the gateway capable of authenticating the user request based upon the received identifying information.