Method and system for client context dissemination for web-based applications

A network access service device comprising:

• a subscriber profile service including contextual information relating to at least one of a client device and a subscriber;
• and
• a client proxy communicatively coupled to the subscriber profile service, the client proxy:
• intercepting a first data request sent from the client device to an application server on a communication network;
• modifying the first data request by inserting an advertisement of contextual information relating to the existence of the subscriber profile service into the first data request prior to transmission to the application server, the advertisement of contextual information being inserted into an extension header for the first data request;
• transmitting the modified data request to the application server;
• receiving a second data request from the application server identifying a subset of the contextual information that the application server wishes to access, the identified subset of the contextual information being a subset of a total contextual information relating to the at least one of the client device and the subscriber;
• retrieving the identified subset of the contextual information from the subscriber profile service;
• and
• transmitting the identified subset of the contextual information to the application server.

A method for advertising contextual information maintained at a subscriber profile server on a communication network, the contextual information relating to at least one of a client device and a subscriber to a network access service provider, the method comprising:

• intercepting a first data request sent from the client device to an application server;
• modifying the first data request by inserting an advertisement of the contextual information into the first data request as an extension header prior to transmission to the application server, the advertisement of the contextual information relating to the existence of the subscriber profile server;
• transmitting the modified data request to the application server;
• receiving a second data request from the application server identifying a subset of the contextual information that the application server wishes to access, the identified subset of the contextual information being a subset of a total contextual information relating to the at least one of the client device and the subscriber;
• retrieving the identified subset of the contextual information from the subscriber profile service;
• and
• transmitting the identified subset of the contextual information to the application server.