Automated device provisioning and activation

What is this patent about?

’935 is related to the field of network management and device communication, specifically focusing on the secure coordination of control-plane traffic between a network system and multiple software agents residing on an end-user device. In modern wireless environments, managing service policies, billing, and device configuration requires a robust and efficient way to communicate instructions without overwhelming the data path or exposing the system to tampering.

The underlying idea behind ’935 is to establish a dedicated, secure service control link that acts as a private highway for administrative and policy-related messages. By using a link initialization sequence that ties the connection to specific device credentials, the system ensures that control messages are delivered to the correct device. The key engineering insight is the use of unique identifiers within encrypted payloads to route specific instructions to individual device agents, allowing the network to manage different functions—such as billing, monitoring, or security—independently on the same device.

The claims of ’935 focus on a network system that establishes a secured service control link with an end-user device over a wireless network. The system receives payloads from various servers and packages them into encrypted messages that include a specific agent identifier. This identifier is critical as it distinguishes the target agent from all other agents on the device, ensuring that the control-plane communication is precisely routed to the intended functional component after the link has been validated against the device's credentials.

In practice, the invention operates by executing a link initialization sequence that authenticates the device before any policy data is exchanged. Once the secure tunnel is active, the network processor can multiplex messages from different backend servers—such as a billing event server or a policy management server—into a single encrypted stream. On the device side, the service processor uses the embedded identifiers to distribute these messages to the appropriate internal agents, such as a policy implementation agent or a service monitor.

This approach differs from prior methods by providing a granular, multi-agent management framework that is decoupled from standard data-plane traffic. Traditional systems often treat the device as a single entity for control purposes, whereas ’935 allows for a distributed service architecture where specific software components can be updated, queried, or controlled individually. This ensures higher security and efficiency, as control-plane chatter is minimized and the integrity of each functional agent can be verified independently through the secured link.