Patents Assigned to Level 3 Communication, LLC
  • Patent number: 9819576
    Abstract: Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer program product embodiments for dynamically applying network functions to traffic flows based on heuristics, policy conditions and client-specified conditions. A network monitors a network traffic flow to determine whether the network traffic flow meets a first criterion of a first rule. The criterion specifies that when the first criterion is met a network function be used to analyze or process the network traffic flow. When the network traffic flow is determined to meet the first criterion, the network determines a first route through the network to a network function provider that provides the network function and configures one or more routers along the first route to forward the network traffic flow to the network function provider for analysis or processing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 14, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: William Thomas Sella, Harold Wayne Teets, James Michael Sella, Pete Joseph Caputo, II, Travis Duane Ewert
  • Patent number: 9819554
    Abstract: At a service on a device, for a first property including a first one or more resources: maintaining first invalidation information relating to resources associated with the first property in the memory on the device; and controlling receipt of invalidation information relating to the first property based on the an amount of space in the memory used by the invalidation information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 14, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Lewis Robert Varney, Laurence R. Lipstone, William Crowder, Andrew Swart, Christopher Newton
  • Publication number: 20170324771
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure involve systems and methods for detecting a potentially fraudulent access of a collaboration conferencing system on a telecommunications network and executing a corrective action in response to the detected access attempt. In some instances, the corrective action includes denying access to the collaboration system when the fraudulent access attempt occurs. In other instances, the corrective action includes providing a warning to the caller, rerouting the communication to another system within the network, or reporting and storing of the fraudulent attempt. To detect the possible fraudulent access attempt, a device may detect more than one fraudulent access attempt to the collaboration conferencing system and determine a pattern. With the pattern of attempts known, the system accesses a database to determine if a valid account is likely to be accessed by the fraudulent attempts and takes actions to prevent access to the valid account.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 30, 2016
    Publication date: November 9, 2017
    Applicant: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Andrew J. Broadworth, Matthew McCarthy
  • Patent number: 9807124
    Abstract: A network provisioning system includes a computer-based set of instructions that receive, from a third party network provisioning system managed by a third party service provider, provisioning information associated with a wiretap to be setup on a customer communication device. The instructions then transmit the provisioning information to a policy server in a network domain. Thereafter, when the media gateway transmits a policy request message to the policy server to establish a call session for the customer communication device, the policy server issues instructions to establish the wiretap in the media gateway.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 8, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventor: Kenneth C. Bade
  • Patent number: 9805412
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure disclose systems and methods for providing order entry platform that automatically enables telecommunication service providers to process customer orders for telecommunication products and/or services in near real-time. More particularly, one or more interactive interfaces, dynamically driven by a products catalog, may be generated that enable telecommunication service providers to automatically process orders received from customers for such products.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 2, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: George T. Joseph, Gregory Arnold, Paul Farnsworth, Steven Rdzak
  • Publication number: 20170310744
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure involve systems, methods, computer program products, and the like, for managing the distribution of content and/or communications from a telecommunications or computer network to an end user of the network. In general, the system receives a request for content from a user of the network and analyzes the request to determine an estimated geographic region and/or an access network associated with the requesting device. Based on the determined geographic region or access network, a networking device returns a specific anycast IP address from which the content may be received. In this manner, the content providing network may utilize multiple anycast IP addresses within the network to provide content to one or more end users of the network. The specific anycast IP address is provided to an end user device to obtain the requested content.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 21, 2017
    Publication date: October 26, 2017
    Applicant: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventor: Joel C. Maslak
  • Patent number: 9800956
    Abstract: Implementations of the present disclosure involve an apparatus and/or method for a regional independent tandem switch of a telecommunications network. The tandem switch processes communications between a long distance carrier and a local exchange carrier through a voice over IP (VOIP) network. By utilizing the VOIP network, the regionally independent tandem may process long distance communications to and from any point in the network, regardless of the physical proximity of the tandem to the originating/destination communication device. The regionally independent nature of the tandem also allows for flexibility in communication routing through the network, load balancing between the network tandem switches and reduction of needed components of the network for proper processing of the long distance communications.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 24, 2017
    Date of Patent: October 24, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Christopher Sayer, Rogier Ducloo, Richard Terpstra
  • Patent number: 9794142
    Abstract: A method for analyzing traffic in a communications network includes sampling data packets at a plurality of network interconnection points, wherein sampling the data packets includes generating a plurality of sampled packet data in one or more standardized formats, converting the sampled packet data from the one or more standardized formats into a neutral format, and aggregating the sampled packet data in the neutral format from the plurality of network interconnection points. A system includes a communications node operable to sample data packets flowing through and generate sample packet data in a specified format, a collector node operable to convert the sampled packet data into a neutral format, the collector node further operable to map IP addresses of the sampled packet data to corresponding prefixes in a routing table; and an aggregator node operable to aggregate neutrally formatted sampled packet data from a plurality of collector nodes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 17, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Raoul Alcala, Niclas Comstedt, Jeff Whitaker
  • Patent number: 9787732
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure disclose system, apparatus and methods for providing an integrated web conferencing. In various aspects, the disclosure is directed to integrating a VoIP client for audio conferencing with a web client. In particular, the system provides for integrating a web portion of a web conference with an audio portion of the web conference. More specifically, the system, apparatus and methods provide for connecting a VoIP client to an audio conferencing portion of the system to facilitate communications between client and server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 14, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 10, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Richard Dean Terpstra, Adam Charles Uzelac
  • Patent number: 9787547
    Abstract: A method for determining network topology of a provider network includes selecting a first network element, selecting a first port on the first network element, and iteratively performing connectivity validation tests using the first port, wherein each connectivity validation test is associated with a type of network element and yields a result that indicates whether a second port on a second network element of the associated type is connected to the first port. A system for discovering topology of a network, the system comprising a topology discovery engine in operable communication with a near network element and operable to identify a first port of a far network element that is connected to a second port of the near network element by remotely altering operation of the near network element to cause the second network element to respond in a manner that identifies the first port.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 10, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Joshua D. Voigt, Christopher T. Coston, Robert J. Feuerstein, Daniel Youngblood, Dan Rosenstock, Troy Kau, Greg Bernhardt
  • Patent number: 9774706
    Abstract: A network application may transmit data over a network connection. The application may require certain functionality for the network connection. An embodiment provides a method for the application to inform the network of its requirement. The application may use a control packet to inform the network of its functionality requirement for the connection it is using. The control packets may be sent to the network at the same time the application is transmitting its data. In an embodiment, a user using the application instructs the network to provide certain functionality using the control packet.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 3, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 26, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventor: William Thomas Sella
  • Publication number: 20170272153
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and devices are disclosed for monitoring optical communications between a managed location and a remote location. In particular, an optical signal is transmitted over an optical fiber and passed-through a test device. A portion of the optical signal is filtered from the original optical signal and passed to a monitoring unit. The monitoring unit may instruct one or more switches in the test device to loop the optical signal back toward the managed location. Subsequently, testing and monitoring may be performed at the managed location. The device may provide a test output or may transmit the information to the managed location.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 6, 2017
    Publication date: September 21, 2017
    Applicant: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Jeffrey K. Storey, John F. Waters, Andrew Dugan, Salvador Parades, Gary Ratteree
  • Patent number: 9769202
    Abstract: Embodiments provide system and methods for a DDoS service using a mix of mitigation systems (also called scrubbing centers) and non-mitigation systems. The non-mitigation systems are less expensive and thus can be placed at or near a customer's network resource (e.g., a computer, cluster of computers, or entire network). Under normal conditions, traffic for a customer's resource can go through a mitigation system or a non-mitigation system. When an attack is detected, traffic that would have otherwise gone through a non-mitigation system is re-routed to a mitigation system. Thus, the non-mitigation systems can be used to reduce latency and provide more efficient access to the customer's network resource during normal conditions. Since the non-mitigation servers are not equipped to respond to an attack, the non-mitigation systems are not used during an attack, thereby still providing protection to the customer network resource using the mitigation systems.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 12, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 19, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Robert Smith, Shawn Marck, Christopher Newton
  • Patent number: 9762692
    Abstract: A content delivery network has at least a first tier of servers. A content delivery method includes, at a first server in the first tier of servers, obtaining a request from a client for a resource. If the resource is available at the first server or at a peer of the first server, then the resource is served to the client from the first server. Otherwise, it is determined whether the resource is popular, and if the resource is determined to be popular, then the first server obtains the resource and the first server serves the resource to the client. If the resource is determined not to be popular, the client is directed to a second server, not in the first tier of servers, and the second server serves the resource to the client. The second server may be in a second tier of servers or it may be an origin server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 13, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 12, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: David Fullagar, Christopher Newton, Laurence Lipstone
  • Patent number: 9762473
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure involve a method for optimizing an extension of an optical network to provide service to one or more new customers. The method considers the location of existing network nodes as well as a metropolitan environment where the new customer is located (e.g., the geographical location of streets where fiber may be routed to a customer). Aspects of the present disclosure further employ one of various linear programming models, such as a 1-Layer Model, a 3-Layer Model, a 5-Layer Model and a Dual Path Model to generate cost effective solutions to extend the existing optical network to provide service to the new customers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 12, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventor: Benjamin K. Peterson
  • Publication number: 20170257439
    Abstract: Apparatuses and methods are disclosed for managing network connections. A computing device accesses a request to provision a network connection associated with a first device. The request includes a plurality of connection parameters defining desired specifications for a network connection from the first device to a second device. The connection parameters are validated against information from a database and other predetermined rules. A network connection path is generated to connect the first device with the second device. The network connection path is generated by selecting network elements for the network connection that satisfy the connection parameters. Configuration information for the network elements of the network connection path is aggregated for a configuration system. The configuration information is used to provision the network connection.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 7, 2017
    Publication date: September 7, 2017
    Applicant: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Jin-Gen Wang, Michael Nythus, Craig Tystad, James M. Adkins, III
  • Patent number: 9755914
    Abstract: A content delivery framework (CDF) includes a plurality of devices, each device configured to run at least one content delivery (CD) service of a plurality of CD services. The plurality of CD services comprise one or more CD service networks, and each particular CD service network has a dynamic network topology.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Christopher Newton, Lewis Robert Varney, Laurence R. Lipstone, William Crowder, Andrew Swart
  • Patent number: 9756507
    Abstract: Implementations described and claimed herein provide a system and methods for determining a minimum number of communication nodes to substantially cover a particular geographical area and for optimizing an extension of an optical network to provide service to the communication nodes. In one implementation, at least one parameter for one or more forces configured to control interactions of a plurality of nodes is received. Each of the nodes has a node range corresponding to an effective operational limit of the node. Boundary information defining a geographical area to which coverage by a network may be provided is received. The one or more forces are simulated to distribute the plurality of nodes. The simulation of the one or more forces causes the plurality of nodes to become positioned in an overall layout such that the defined geographical area is substantially covered by the node ranges.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 11, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Benjamin K. Peterson, Samid Ameer Hoda
  • Patent number: 9756034
    Abstract: Implementations of the present disclosure involve a system and/or method for providing account information for a telephone number. All users are authenticated to ensure they may access the account information. Once authenticated, the user provides one or more telephone numbers that they would like to retrieve account information for. The system searches for the telephone number and if found, checks to ensure that the telecommunications provider services the phone number. When the telecommunications provider is the provider for the phone number, the record is retrieved and sent to the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 18, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 5, 2017
    Assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Brett Wentworth, Taylor Fraley, Mike Keating, Dale Drew, John Fable
  • Publication number: 20170250911
    Abstract: A data network analysis system includes a computer-executable set of instructions that obtain service account information associated with a route provided to a customer through a data communication network having network elements. Using the service account information, the instructions identify a termination port that terminates the route to a customer premises equipment of the customer, and at least one target port of the route and those network elements that are assigned to convey the route through one or more of the network elements. The instructions then obtain the routing information for the route from each of the network elements that are assigned to convey the route.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 29, 2016
    Publication date: August 31, 2017
    Applicant: Level 3 Communications, LLC
    Inventors: Steve R. Wakumoto, Andrew S. Gerber, John D. Clouatre