Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

University of Washington

Sidharth Nabar

Shai Guday

David Neil MacDonald

Thomas W Kuehnel

James Christopher Gray

Piyush Goyal

Triptpal Singh Lamba

Darya Mazandarany

Tyler Edward Hennessy

Saumaya Sharma

Radha Poovendran

Brent Edward Ford

Jeffrey Walling

Mohammad Shabbir Alam

Vladimir Holostov

Christopher R Rice

Calvin Choe

Nicholas A Banks

Scott Michael Bragg

Rao Salapaka

Douglas Edward Stamper

James N Gray

Nick Banks

Javier Flores Assad

Gregory Thomas Caponigro

Shi Chen

Thomas Kuehnel

James Gray

Various technologies described herein pertain to utilization of shared Wi-Fi. For instance, network access rights of a Wi-Fi network can be controlled by a mobile device of a point of contact for the Wi-Fi network. Moreover, utilization of a Wi-Fi network can be tracked and usage data indicative of historic utilization of the Wi-Fi network can be retained. Further, groups of users between whom Wi-Fi credentials are shared can be created.

Shared Wi-Fi usage

Examples of the disclosure describe automatically associating devices of a user with a network service subscription of the user. The user has a subscription to services offered by an entity. Connection statistics for the devices to networks are generated and compared to criteria to determine whether any of the devices should be associated with the subscription of the user. After association, the devices are able to access networks and/or services associated with the subscription.

Identifying and targeting devices based on network service subscriptions

Embodiments apply a set of sequenced instructions to connect to a network through a captive portal. A computing device detects a network access point and obtains the instruction set corresponding to the network access point. The instruction set is derived by a cloud service from crowdsourced data describing interactions between mobile computing devices and the network access point. Applying the instruction set includes performing actions such as navigating web pages to accept terms and conditions, provide user or device information, and more.

Applying sequenced instructions to connect through captive portals

Various technologies described herein pertain to sharing Wi-Fi credentials based upon relationships in a computer-implemented social network. At least one server computing device of a Wi-Fi credential sharing service receives an identifier from a mobile device and credentials for a Wi-Fi network from the mobile device. The identifier identifies a user of the mobile device. Moreover, the credentials for the Wi-Fi network are desirably shared by the user. Further, contacts of the user are retrieved from the social network. The credentials for the Wi-Fi network are retained in respective accounts of the contacts of the user from the social network. Further, an account of a contact includes credentials for Wi-Fi networks shared with the contact.

Sharing based on social network contacts

Embodiments personalize a set of network access points (NAPs) acting as captive portals for each user and/or user device. A cloud service, or the user device, accesses context describing the user device. The context identifies at least one NAP, and may include accounting data. One of the NAP is selected for connection based on the context, and an instruction set associated with the selected NAP is provided for replay by the user device to connect through the NAP. In some embodiments, instructions within the instruction set are also personalized to the user and/or user device based on the context.

Context-based selection of instruction sets for connecting through captive portals

A communication-management method involves a recurring polling scheme, wherein network nodes are polled by a base station according to optimized and/or user-preferred polling intervals assigned to each network node. The polling interval assigned to a given node may be optimized to minimize and/or achieve user-preferred thresholds for energy consumption and latency associated with each network node in the sensor network. Optimized and/or user-preferred polling intervals may be constrained in accordance with various network performance considerations, for example, a recommended update interval for each network node, characteristics of the network nodes themselves, the duration of the timeslots at which the network nodes are polled, and/or other network performance considerations.

Optimization of polling protocols in sensor networks

A communication-management method involves a recurring polling scheme, wherein network nodes are polled by a base station according to optimized and/or user-preferred polling intervals assigned to each network node. The polling interval assigned to a given node may be optimized to minimize and/or achieve user-preferred thresholds for energy consumption and latency associated with each network node in the sensor network. Optimized and/or user-preferred polling intervals may be constrained in accordance with various network performance considerations, for example, a recommended update interval for each network node, characteristics of the network nodes themselves, the duration of the timselots at which the network nodes are polled, and/or other network performance considerations.

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

Sidharth Nabar