Methods and apparatus for use in facilitating access to aggregator services for mobile communication devices via wireless communication networks

Abstract

In one illustrative example, a wireless local area network (WLAN) regularly broadcasts or otherwise communicates one or more aggregator service identifiers which identify one or more aggregator services made available via the WLAN. In addition, a mobile communication device has a memory for storing aggregator service information. During operation, the mobile device performs a scanning operation and receives, from the scanning operation, the one or more aggregator service identifiers from the WLAN. The mobile device compares a received aggregator service identifier with one or more stored aggregator service identifiers of the aggregator service information. When there is a match between the received and the stored aggregator service identifiers, the mobile device may connect with and receive the aggregator service via the WLAN. For newly-encountered WLANs, the mobile device may also automatically create and store a wireless network profile associated with the WLAN that provides the aggregator service. For each aggregator or aggregator service, the aggregator service information may include a service name of the aggregator or aggregator service, a security type for authentication, a first URL for obtaining service information for the aggregator service, and a second URL for subscribing to the aggregator service, all of which may be displayed or otherwise utilized for obtaining service.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.