BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

(1) Field of the Invention

The invention pertains generally to activating services for guests at hospitality establishments. More specifically, the invention relates to a service controller at a first hospitality establishment updating a central user profile server to store an association of a device identifier of a user device with a user identifier determined during a login process to thereby facilitate automatic service activation for the user device at a second hospitality establishment without requiring the login process to be performed by the user device at the second hospitality establishment.

(2) Description of the Related Art

Hospitality establishments such as hotels and resorts typically provide high speed Internet access (HSIA) to guests. Often a hospitality establishment desires to provide guests with HSIA using a computer network installed on the premises but does not wish to design or support the network. In this situation, the hospitality establishment may contract an external vendor to provide an HSIA solution.

An example of a vendor-provided HSIA solution is the One View Internet™ (OVI) system by Guest-tek™. To begin an HSIA session at a hotel employing the OVI system, a guest connects a user device to the hotel's computer network, either through a physical cable such as Ethernet or a wireless connection such as WiFi™, and opens a web browser to access a website on the Internet. Instead of allowing user devices immediate access to the Internet, the OVI system acts as a captive portal and requires the guest to first log in at a predetermined login portal. To this end, a firewall controlling access between the local area network (LAN) of the hotel and the Internet includes a default rule that causes unauthorized user devices to display the login portal in the web browser.

At the login portal the guest signs up for Internet access. When the guest is an attendee of an event being held at the hotel such as a meeting or conference, the guest enters a meeting passcode known only to attendees of the event in order to sign in. The OVI system checks the meeting passcode entered by the user to determine whether it matches that of an active event currently being held at the hospitality establishment. When the guest is an individual staying at the hotel, the guest enters their room number and other personal details, selects a desired bandwidth level and other options such as access duration etc., provides payment information, and performs other actions such as agreeing to terms and conditions. The OVI system only authorizes the user device to access the Internet after the guest has successfully completed the login process at the login portal.

To authorize a particular user device for HSIA after the login process has been completed, the OVI system adds a device-specific rule to the firewall that allows data to flow between the Internet and the unique media access control (MAC) address of the particular user device. In this way, only user devices from which guests of the hotel have properly logged in at the login portal are provided HSIA.

However, some user devices brought to hotels are unable to be logged in at a web-based login portal because the devices either do not include web browsing technology or do not permit the guest to access the login portal.

Examples of user devices that do not include web browsing technology include standalone teleconferencing webcam appliances, routers, Internet Protocol (IP) telephones, and other IP-enabled devices that lack a user interface capable of displaying the login portal or allowing the guest to enter the required login information. Because these devices are not capable of utilizing the web-based login portal, they cannot be logged in and do not gain Internet connectivity at the hotel.

Examples of user devices that do not permit the guest to access the login portal include locked-down corporate and military laptops and equipment that is configured to only connect with a designated destination such as a fixed server address accessed via a company or military virtual private network (VPN). Although these devices may include web browsers that are technically capable of displaying a login portal, due to security concerns, the device may be configured to actively ignore or block any attempts to cause the device to display the hotel's login portal. Typically the users of such devices have no administrator rights to modify or override these security settings. Therefore, these devices also cannot be logged in at the login portal and do not gain Internet connectivity at the hotel.

When a guest is unable to log in from a particular user device at the login portal such as in the above-described situations, the guest needs to contact support staff to request that the user device be manually cleared through the hotel's firewall in order to receive HSIA. Often the guest will not realize that manual intervention by support staff is required and may waste significant time attempting to troubleshoot the lack of Internet connectivity on their own. When the guest finally does call technical support for assistance, the guest may not be ready to provide support staff with the device's unique MAC address, which is required in order to manually add a device-specific exception allowing Internet access to the firewall. Helping the guest determine their device's unique MAC address delays call center staff in resolving the problem and moving onto a next support call.

Manual adjustment of firewall rules by support staff in order to give certain user devices Internet access both increases the support costs of the hospitality establishment's HSIA system and negatively impacts the guest experience. It would be desirable to be able to automatically activate the HSIA service for these devices.

iPass Incorporated offers the iPass Open Mobile Client™ that when installed on a user device automatically logs in the user device upon arrival at an iPass-enabled hotspot or Internet access provider such as a hotel. However, in order for the iPass Open Mobile Client to automatically log in a new user for Internet access, the user (or the user's employer in the case of a corporate device) must have previously signed up for an iPass account and purchased an amount of Internet access in advance. The user must also have previously installed and configured the iPass Open Mobile Client software on their device, which may not be possible for devices unsupported by iPass's client software or for which the user does not have sufficient access rights to install software (e.g., a locked-down corporate/military devices).

International Patent Publication No. WO2011005710 A2 discloses a system that allows zones and migration rules between the zones to be configured within a hotel. When a rule is configured to allow migration from a first zone to a second zone, guests already logged into the first zone may migrate to the second zone without being forced to re-log in. However, this system still requires the user to first log in and gain access to an initial zone upon arrival at the hotel. Only after the user has logged in from the initial zone will the system allow the user to migrate to certain other zones in the hotel without being required to re-log in.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a high speed Internet access (HSIA) service at a hospitality establishment such as a hotel is automatically activated for a particular guest's user device upon detecting the device identifier of the user device on the local area network of the hospitality establishment. An advantage of this embodiment is the guest may immediately access the Internet from the user device upon arrival at the hospitality establishment without requiring the guest to first log in at a login portal from the user device or preinstall special client software.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention a service for a particular guest of a hospitality establishment is automatically activated in response to detecting on a local area network of the hospitality establishment a user device having a device identifier associated with the particular guest.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a method including detecting a device identifier of a user device on a local area network of a hospitality establishment and determining whether a guest of the hospitality establishment is associated with the device identifier. The method further includes automatically activating 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.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a tangible computer-readable medium comprising computer executable instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform the above method.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a service controller including 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 the local area network of the 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.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed an apparatus comprising means for detecting a device identifier of a user device on a local area network of a hospitality establishment, means for determining whether a guest of the hospitality establishment is associated with the device identifier, and means for automatically activating 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.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a system including a service controller for detecting a device identifier of a user device on a local area network of a hospitality establishment, and at least one database queried by the service controller to determine whether a guest of the hospitality establishment is associated with the device identifier. The service controller automatically activates 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.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a method including detecting a device identifier of a user device in network traffic transmitted on a local area network of a hospitality establishment; determining that a service available at the hospitality establishment is not already activated for the user device; querying a reservation database of the hospitality establishment to determine whether the detected device identifier matches a registered user device associated with an active reservation of the hospitality establishment, wherein reservations of the hospitality establishment stored in the reservation database may each be associated with one or more registered user devices and are determined active according to their respective start and end times in comparison with current time; and automatically activating the service for the user device when the detected device identifier matches at least one registered user device associated with at least one active reservation of the hospitality establishment.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a method including detecting a device identifier of a user device in network traffic transmitted on a local area network of a hospitality establishment; determining that a service available at the hospitality establishment is not already activated for the user device; querying a user profile database to find a particular user identifier that is associated with the detected device identifier, wherein the user profile database stores associations between one or more device identifiers and one or more user identifiers; querying a guest database of the hospitality establishment to determine whether the particular user identifier is associated with a current guest of the hospitality establishment, wherein the guest database of the hospitality establishment stores user identifiers of currently registered guests of the hospitality establishment; and automatically activating the service for the user device when the particular user identifier is associated with at least one current guest of the hospitality establishment.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a service controller including 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 in network traffic transmitted on the local area network; determine that a service available at the hospitality establishment is not already activated for the user device; query a reservation database of the hospitality establishment to determine whether the detected device identifier matches a registered user device associated with an active reservation of the hospitality establishment, wherein reservations of the hospitality establishment stored in the reservation database may each be associated with one or more registered user devices and are determined active according to their respective start and end times in comparison with current time; and automatically activate the service for the user device when the detected device identifier matches at least one registered user device associated with at least one active reservation of the hospitality establishment.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a service controller including 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 in network traffic transmitted on a local area network of the hospitality establishment; determine that a service available at the hospitality establishment is not already activated for the user device; query a user profile database to find a particular user identifier that is associated with the detected device identifier, wherein the user profile database stores associations between one or more device identifiers and one or more user identifiers; query a guest database of the hospitality establishment to determine whether the particular user identifier is associated with a current guest of the hospitality establishment, wherein the guest database of the hospitality establishment stores user identifiers of currently registered guests of the hospitality establishment; and automatically activate the service for the user device when the particular user identifier is associated with at least one current guest of the hospitality establishment.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a system including a reservation database storing reservations of a hospitality establishment, wherein reservations of the hospitality establishment stored in the reservation database may each be associated with one or more registered user devices and are determined active according to their respective start and end times in comparison with current time; and a service controller coupled to the reservation database. The service controller is operable to detect a device identifier of a user device in network traffic transmitted on a local area network of the hospitality establishment; determine that a service available at the hospitality establishment is not already activated for the user device; query the reservation database to determine whether the detected device identifier matches a registered user device associated with an active reservation of the hospitality establishment; and automatically activate the service for the user device when the detected device identifier matches at least one registered user device associated with at least one active reservation of the hospitality establishment.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a system including a user profile database storing associations between one or more device identifiers and one or more user identifiers; a guest database of a hospitality establishment storing user identifiers of currently registered guests of the hospitality establishment; and a service controller coupled to the user profile database, the guest database, and a local area network of the hospitality establishment. The service controller operable to detect a device identifier of a user device in network traffic transmitted on the local area network of the hospitality establishment; determine that a service available at the hospitality establishment is not already activated for the user device; query the user profile database to find a particular user identifier that is associated with the detected device identifier; query the guest database to determine whether the particular user identifier is associated with a current guest of the hospitality establishment; and automatically activate the service for the user device when the particular user identifier is associated with at least one current guest of the hospitality establishment.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a system including a first service controller coupled to a first local area network at a first hospitality establishment, a second service controller coupled to a second local area network at a second hospitality establishment, and a user profile server coupled to a wide area network, the user profile server storing associations between one or more device identifiers and one or more user identifiers. The first service controller is configured to detect a device identifier of a user device in network traffic transmitted on the first local area network, query the user profile server via the wide area network to determine whether the device identifier is associated with any of the one or more user identifiers stored at the user profile server, and, in response to determining the device identifier to not be associated with any of the one or more user identifiers stored at the user profile server, cause the user device to display a first login portal and receive user authentication information from the user device during a login process. The first service controller is further configured to determine a user identifier corresponding to the user authentication information, and update the user profile server to store an association between the device identifier of the user device and the user identifier corresponding to the user authentication information. The second service controller is configured to detect the device identifier of the user device in network traffic transmitted on the second local area network at a future time after the first service controller has updated the user profile server, query the user profile server via the wide area network to determine whether the device identifier is associated with any of the one or more user identifiers stored at the user profile server, and receive the user identifier now associated with the device identifier from the user profile server. The second service controller is further configured to determine whether the user identifier is associated with a current guest of the second hospitality establishment, and, when the user identifier received from the user profile server is associated with at least one current guest of the second hospitality establishment, automatically activate a network service for the user device at the second hospitality establishment thereby preventing the user device from needing to display a second login portal before gaining access to the network service from the second local area network.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a method including storing by a user profile server associations between one or more device identifiers and one or more user identifiers, detecting by a first service controller a device identifier of a user device in network traffic transmitted on a first local area network at a first hospitality establishment, and querying by the first service controller the user profile server via a wide area network to determine whether the device identifier is associated with any of the one or more user identifiers stored at the user profile server. The method further includes in response to the first service controller determining the device identifier to not be associated with any of the one or more user identifiers stored at the user profile server, causing the user device to display a first login portal and receiving user authentication information from the user device during a login process. The method further includes determining by the first service controller a user identifier corresponding to the user authentication information, updating by the first service controller the user profile server to store an association between the device identifier of the user device and the user identifier corresponding to the user authentication information, and detecting by a second service controller the device identifier of the user device in network traffic transmitted on a second local area network of a second hospitality establishment at a future time after the first service controller has updated the user profile server. The method further includes querying the user profile server by the second service controller via the wide area network to determine whether the device identifier is associated with any of the one or more user identifiers stored at the user profile server, receiving the user identifier now associated with the device identifier from the user profile server by the second service controller, and determining whether the user identifier is associated with a current guest of the second hospitality establishment. The method further includes, when the user identifier received from the user profile server is associated with at least one current guest of the second hospitality establishment, automatically activating by the second service controller a network service for the user device at the second hospitality establishment thereby preventing the user device from needing to display a second login portal before gaining access to the network service from the second local area network.

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention there is disclosed a non-transitory processor-readable medium comprising a plurality of processor-executable instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to perform steps of storing by a user profile server associations between one or more device identifiers and one or more user identifiers, detecting by a first service controller a device identifier of a user device in network traffic transmitted on a first local area network at a first hospitality establishment, and querying by the first service controller the user profile server via a wide area network to determine whether the device identifier is associated with any of the one or more user identifiers stored at the user profile server. The steps further include, in response to the first service controller determining the device identifier to not be associated with any of the one or more user identifiers stored at the user profile server, causing the user device to display a first login portal and receiving user authentication information from the user device during a login process. The steps further include determining by the first service controller a user identifier corresponding to the user authentication information, updating by the first service controller the user profile server to store an association between the device identifier of the user device and the user identifier corresponding to the user authentication information, and detecting by a second service controller the device identifier of the user device in network traffic transmitted on a second local area network of a second hospitality establishment at a future time after the first service controller has updated the user profile server. The steps further include querying the user profile server by the second service controller via the wide area network to determine whether the device identifier is associated with any of the one or more user identifiers stored at the user profile server, receiving the user identifier now associated with the device identifier from the user profile server by the second service controller, and determining whether the user identifier is associated with a current guest of the second hospitality establishment. The steps further include, when the user identifier received from the user profile server is associated with at least one current guest of the second hospitality establishment, automatically activating by the second service controller a network service for the user device at the second hospitality establishment thereby preventing the user device from needing to display a second login portal before gaining access to the network service from the second local area network.

These and other embodiments and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, illustrating by way of example the principles of the invention.

