Bandwidth modification for transparent capacity management in a carrier network

For a carrier network comprising a plurality of service regions that provide wireless data access to data of an external data network, a method performed by a capacity management agent located between the plurality of service regions and the external data network, the capacity management agent having a processor and non-transitory computer-readable storage, the method comprising:

• receiving at the capacity management agent, data from the external data network that is intended for an end user at a particular service region of the carrier network;
• identifying subscriber information for the end user, the subscriber information identifying the end user as a subscriber receiving services according to at least one of (i) a pay-per-access plan and (ii) an unlimited access plan;
• adjusting a rate at which the capacity management agent forwards the data to the particular service region based on whether the end user receives services according to the pay-per-access plan or the unlimited access plan;
• passing said data from the capacity management agent to the particular service region through the carrier network at a first rate when the subscriber information identifies the end user as a subscriber receiving services according to the pay-per-access plan;
• and
• caching said data temporarily to the non-transitory computer-readable storage of the capacity management agent for subsequent passing from the capacity management agent to the particular service region through the carrier network at a second rate that is less than the first rate when the subscriber information identifies the end user as a subscriber receiving services according to the unlimited access plan such that transfer rates for unlimited access plan subscribers are throttled relative to transfer rates for pay-per-access plan subscribers.

A capacity management agent for transparently managing capacity of a carrier network, the capacity management agent comprising:

• a network interface (i) for receiving data that passes between at least one service region of a carrier network and an external data network and (ii) for receiving, from the carrier network, condition parameters that identify available resources of the service region, wherein the available resources are determined from overall resources of the service region decreased based on a collective usage of the overall resources by a plurality of users operating in the service region;
• a non-transitory computer-readable medium buffering the data for subsequent forwarding of the data to the service region;
• and
• a processor controlling the rate at which the capacity management agent forwards the data to the service region based on the available resources of the service region by (i) passing the data from the non-transitory computer-readable medium through the network interface to the service region at a first rate when the available resources of the service region satisfy a threshold amount and (ii) passing the data from the non-transitory computer-readable medium at a reduced second rate through the network interface to the service region when the available resources of the service region do not satisfy the threshold amount.