Guest Tek Interactive Entertainment Ltd.

David T Ong

Joshua M Wookey

Peter S Warrick

Andrew B Baker

Difan Zhao

Andrew Terrance MacMillan

Darren T Ziebart

Ian S McBeth

Josh Wookey

A walled garden system includes a firewall controlling access between a first network and a second network at least by allowing connection requests originating from a user device on the first network to a destination IP address on the second network in response to determining that the destination IP address matches a cleared IP address on a cleared IP addresses list. A controller receives a domain name service (DNS) reply from a DNS server on the second network, and determines whether a domain name specified within the DNS reply matches a cleared domain name on a cleared domain names list. In response to determining that the domain name specified within the DNS reply matches the cleared domain name on the cleared domain names list, the controller adds a resolved IP address specified in the DNS reply to the cleared IP addresses list as a new cleared IP address.

DNS proxy that automatically clears IP addresses in firewall according to DNS queries of cleared domain names

Network traffic is received from an unrecognized guest device on a computer network. A user profile server is queried to determine a user identifier that is associated with the device identifier of the unrecognized guest device. A login database is queried to find an unexpired login record of an authorized guest device associated with the user identifier. The unexpired login record grants the authorized guest device access to the network service with a service entitlement for an allowed access duration, and a stored device identifier in the unexpired login record of the authorized guest device is different from the device identifier of the unrecognized guest device. The service entitlement of the network service specified in the unexpired login record is shared between the authorized guest device and the unrecognized guest device for a remaining portion of the allowed access duration of the unexpired login record of the authorized guest device.

Sharing service entitlement of network service between multiple guest devices

A service controller includes a network interface for coupling to a local area network of a hospitality establishment, and one or more processors coupled to the network interface. The one or more processors are configured to detect a device identifier of a user device on a local area network of a hospitality establishment, determine whether a guest of the hospitality establishment is associated with the device identifier, and automatically activate a service for the user device at the hospitality establishment in response to detecting the device identifier on the local area network when a guest of the hospitality establishment is determined to be associated with the device identifier.

Service controller at first establishment updating central user profile server to associate device identifier of user device with user identifier to facilitate automatic network service activation for the user device at second establishment

Network traffic, including a device identifier, is received from an unrecognized guest device on a computer network of a hospitality establishment. A user profile server is queried to determine a user identifier that is associated with the device identifier of the guest device. A properly management system is queried to determine whether the user identifier is associated with a current guest of the hospitality establishment, and, when yes, to determine a guest area registered to the current guest. A login database is queried to find an unexpired login record of an authorized guest device associated with the guest area, the unexpired login record granting the authorized guest device access to the network service for an allowed access duration. The unrecognized guest device is automatically granted access to the network service for a remaining portion of the allowed access duration of the unexpired login record.

Allowing guest of hospitality establishment to utilize multiple guest devices to access network service

The described captive portal techniques cause client devices to display requested webpage for authorized device and modified content for unauthorized devices. One designated web page may be different than a requested web page such as when a client is not authorized to access the requested webpage and the requested webpage is not one of the walled garden websites. When the requested webpage is within walled garden website, the original content of the requested webpage is modified to include at least some original content. The captive portal may modify the designated web page to ensure that relative links lacking base domains now have specified base domains pointing to an authorized web server. Client web browser security measures related to redirection messages are thereby bypassed and load on the captive portal is minimal. The client device may also be prevented from caching the modified content of the requested web page.

Captive portal that modifies content retrieved from requested web page for unauthorized client devices

Walled garden system with cleared IPS list automatically generated from DNS queries

A server in a captive portal accepts a connection from a user device to the IP address of the server and receives a HTTP or HTTPS request over the connection. The connection may be a result of the user device being previously determined to be not logged in, and consequently provided the IP address of the server as a DNS resolved IP address, the user device thereafter caching the IP address of the server. The server responds with requested content if the target host of the request is a local host. If the target host is a remote destination, the server queries a login database to determine whether the user device is logged in. The server acts as a transparent proxy between the user device and the remote destination if the user device is logged in, else the server sends alternate content to the user device over the connection.

DNS-based captive portal with integrated transparent proxy to protect against user device caching incorrect IP address

Automatic room check-in upon detecting device identifier of new guest on network of hospitality establishment

A bandwidth management system includes a plurality of queues respectively corresponding to a plurality of zones. An enqueuing module receives network traffic from one or more incoming network interfaces, determines a belonging zone to which the network traffic belongs, and enqueues the network traffic on a queue corresponding to the belonging zone. A dequeuing module selectively dequeues data from the queues and passes the data to one or more outgoing network interfaces. When dequeuing data from the queues the dequeuing module dequeues an amount of data from a selected queue, and the amount of data dequeued from the selected queue is determined according to user load of a zone to which the selected queue corresponds.

Allocating bandwidth between bandwidth zones according to user load

Network traffic, including a device identifier, is received from a guest device on a computer network of a hospitality establishment. The device identifier of the guest device is used to determine that the guest device is not already authorized to access the network service at a time the network traffic is received, the guest device hence considered an unrecognized guest device. A user profile server is queried to determine a user identifier that is associated with the device identifier of the guest device. A login database is queried to find an unexpired login record of an authorized guest device associated with the user identifier, the unexpired login record granting the authorized guest device access to the network service for an allowed access duration. The unrecognized guest device is automatically granted access to the network service for a remaining portion of the allowed access duration of the unexpired login record.

A system includes a storage device for storing details of a plurality of reservations of a hospitality establishment. A particular reservation includes a set of reservation-specific settings affecting behavior of the computer network at the hospitality establishment during the reservation. The settings may include a registered device setting for affecting behavior of a computer network at the hospitality establishment toward a user device having a specified device identifier. The system further includes a clock unit for tracking time, and a system controller coupled to the computer network and having access to the storage device and the clock unit. The system controller automatically configures one or more network components of the computer network when a start time of the particular reservation is reached in order to activate the reservation-specific settings.

Automatically configuring computer network at hospitality establishment with reservation-specific settings

A captive portal system includes a login database, a web server, and a name server. The name server receives a DNS request from a user device, queries the login database to determine whether the user device is logged in, and responds to the DNS request with the IP address of the web server as a resolved IP address of the specified domain name when the user device is not logged in. The web server accepts a connection request from the user device to the IP address of the web server, receives an HTTP request specifying a non-local target URL from the user device, queries the login database to determine whether the user device is logged in according to the source address of the user device, and acts as a transparent proxy between the user device and the non-local target URL when the user device is logged in.

The described captive portal techniques cause client devices to render and display designated web pages. One designated web page may be different than a requested web page such as when a client is not authorized to access the requested page and is instead caused to display a login portal. The captive portal may modify the designated web page to ensure that relative links lacking base domains now have specified base domains pointing to an authorized web server. The modified content is sent from the captive portal to the client device for display. Client web browser security measures related to redirection messages are thereby bypassed and load on the captive portal is minimal. Another designated web page may be the same as the requested web page such as when the requested page is an authorized page even for non-logged in clients. Authorized pages may be modified to add a login link.

Captive portal that modifies content retrieved from requested web page within walled garden to add link to login portal for unauthorized client devices

Network traffic is received from a guest device on a computer network of a hospitality establishment, and a guest area of the hospitality establishment is accordingly identified. A login database is queried to find an unexpired login for the guest area, the unexpired login specifying a stored guest identifier corresponding to information retrieved from a property management system of the hospitality establishment regarding a guest of the guest area at a time when the unexpired login was created. The stored guest identifier of the unexpired login is compared with a current guest identifier of the guest area retrieved from the property management system regarding a current guest of the guest area. When the stored guest identifier matches the current guest identifier, the guest device is automatically allowed to access the network service for a remaining portion of the allowed access duration of the unexpired login.

Growing community of inventors

Calgary, Canada

David T Ong