Liu and Shafiq receive patent on cellular connection sharing
Alex X. Liu, Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University, and Zubair Shafiq, former Ph.D. student of Alex X. Liu in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University, currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Iowa, have been issued a patent entitled "Cellular Connection Sharing", in collaboration with researchers Lusheng Ji, Jeffrey Pang, Jia Wang, and Shobha Venkataraman from AT&T Labs.The patent is for a method for sharing a cellular network connection amongst multiple devices over a local area network to reduce cellular network load during crowded events. In an aspect, a devices is configure to perform operations that include scanning an area for another device that has established a first wireless cellular connection with a cellular network device of a cellular network and that enables an indirect connection of the device to the cellular network device via a direct connection of the device to the other device via a local network device. The operations further include, in response to identifying the other device as a result of the scanning, sending a request to the other device to connect to the other device via the local network device and to receive the indirect connection to the cellular network device.
(Date Posted: 2017-03-23)
