Patent ID: 8683073

Claim:
A method, performed by a wireless service provider, for providing network service to a computing device by authenticating a user account of the computing device via a connectivity exchange, comprising: broadcasting a connectivity exchange identifier that identifies a connectivity exchange, the connectivity exchange comprising a service that enables users that have user accounts with different account service providers to access a network through any of a number of different wireless service providers that are at different physical locations and that each broadcast the same connectivity exchange identifier, by enabling each wireless service provider to authenticate any of the users with the appropriate service provider in the connectivity exchange and to negotiate a monetary rate for access to the network; receiving a request to access the network from the computing device, wherein the request includes a user credential identifying a user account; sending the user credential to the connectivity exchange for validation, the connectivity exchange including a list of different service providers that are members of the connectivity exchange, wherein the connectivity exchange selects a first service provider from the list of service providers to which the user credential pertains and validates the user credential with the first service provider to authenticate the user account; negotiating a monetary rate for providing the computing device access to the network, including: sending a feature set and a monetary offer corresponding to the feature set to the first service provider , wherein the feature set identifies requested attributes, including one or more network-related attributes preferred by one or more of the user or the computing device and one or more network-related attributes that are available at the wireless service provider; and receiving an access accept message from the first service provider indicating acceptance of the feature set and the corresponding monetary offer for providing network access meeting the requested attributes of the feature set to the computing device; based on negotiating the monetary rate, providing network access to the computing device; monitoring the computing device's access to the network, including monitoring one or more of bandwidth, quality of service, or duration of access; and creating a bill to send to the first service provider based on the computing device's monitored access to the network.