US 12,002,117 B1
Advanced metering with distributed ledger control
Lyle Walter Paczkowski, Mission Hills, KS (US); Ivo Rook, New York, NY (US); and John Melvin Meyer, Jr., Lenexa, KS (US)
Assigned to T-MOBILE INNOVATIONS LLC, Overland Park, KS (US)
Filed by T-Mobile Innovations LLC, Overland Park, KS (US)
Filed on Mar. 12, 2019, as Appl. No. 16/299,833.
Int. Cl. G06Q 50/06 (2012.01); H04L 9/06 (2006.01); H04L 41/342 (2022.01); H04L 9/00 (2022.01)
CPC G06Q 50/06 (2013.01) [H04L 9/0637 (2013.01); H04L 41/342 (2022.05); G06Q 2220/00 (2013.01); H04L 9/50 (2022.05)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of operating a resource-metering data network under distributed ledger control, the method comprising:
slice control circuitry directing Management and Orchestration (MANO) circuitry to launch a wireless network slice that comprises a hardware-trust Virtual Network Function (VNF), a ledger-client VNF, and a distributed-ledger VNF;
the MANO circuitry directing a Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI) to instantiate the wireless network slice comprising the hardware-trust VNF, the ledger-client VNF, and the distributed-ledger VNF;
the NFVI executing the hardware-trust VNF, the ledger-client VNF, and the distributed-ledger VNF;
the slice control circuitry directing a wireless network computer to provision a wireless User Equipment (UE) with a hardware-trust application, a ledger-client application, a resource metering application, and contact information for the hardware-trust VNF;
the wireless UE initiating hardware-trust communications with the hardware-trust VNF by using the contact information for the hardware-trust VNF;
the hardware-trust VNF establishing hardware-trust with the ledger-client VNF, the distributed-ledger VNF, and the wireless UE based on hardware-trust codes that are physically-embedded in read-only memories of the NFVI and the wireless UE;
the wireless UE executing the hardware trust application, the ledger-client application, and the resource meter application, measuring resource-usage, and wirelessly transferring meter data characterizing the resource-usage for delivery to the ledger-client VNF responsive to the hardware-trust communications and by using the contact information for the ledger-client VNF;
the ledger-client VNF transferring the meter data to the distributed-ledger VNF; and
the distributed-ledger VNF executing distributed ledger transactions with the meter data, generating resource-usage results, and committing the meter data and the resource-usage results to different distributed ledgers in a blockchain format comprising data blocks.