Patent ID: 8121071

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a gateway configured to: receive data from one of first one or more devices of a local area network to be transmitted to one of second one or more devices, wherein the gateway includes a plurality of wide area network interfaces respectively communicatively coupled to a plurality of wide area networks, and wherein at least one of the plurality of wide area networks is a wireless wide area network; determine a preferred wide area network and a back-up wide area network among the plurality of wide area networks based on one or more of an association with a service provider, a throughput, or an operating condition; obtain approval to transmit through at least one of the wide area networks; transmit the received data to the one of second one or more devices over the preferred wide area network through one of the plurality of wide area network interfaces correspondingly communicatively coupled to the preferred wide area network; and in response to the preferred wide area network being unavailable, transmitting, by the gateway, the received data to the one of the second one or more devices over the back-up wide area network through another one of the plurality of wide area network interfaces correspondingly communicatively coupled to the back-up wide area network.