US 11,743,733 B2
Method and devices for hardware identifier-based subscription management
Athanasios Karapantelakis, Solna (SE); Ioannis Fikouras, Stockholm (SE); Rafia Inam, Västerås (SE); Qiang Li, Täby (SE); Leonid Mokrushin, Uppsala (SE); Maxim Teslenko, Sollentuna (SE); Konstantinos Vandikas, Solna (SE); and Aneta Vulgarakis Feljan, Stockholm (SE)
Assigned to TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL), Stockholm (SE)
Filed by Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ), Stockholm (SE)
Filed on Sep. 27, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/485,800.
Application 17/485,800 is a continuation of application No. 16/626,733, granted, now 11,134,388, previously published as PCT/EP2017/066162, filed on Jun. 29, 2017.
Prior Publication US 2022/0014929 A1, Jan. 13, 2022
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. H04W 12/71 (2021.01); H04W 76/10 (2018.01); H04L 9/40 (2022.01); H04W 8/04 (2009.01); H04W 8/18 (2009.01); H04W 12/06 (2021.01); H04W 12/037 (2021.01)
CPC H04W 12/71 (2021.01) [H04L 63/0876 (2013.01); H04W 8/04 (2013.01); H04W 8/18 (2013.01); H04W 12/037 (2021.01); H04W 12/06 (2013.01); H04W 76/10 (2018.02)] 14 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer-implemented method performed by a network device in a cellular network, for enabling connecting devices to the cellular network using hardware identifiers uniquely assigned when the devices are manufactured, the method comprising:
storing subscriber records, each subscriber record including a hardware identifier of a device;
receiving, at an interface of the network device, a target hardware identifier of a target device that has requested to attach to the cellular network;
authenticating the target device for connecting to the cellular network based on the target hardware identifier, wherein authenticating the target device comprises:
determining whether the subscriber records comprise a record including the target hardware identifier; and
in response to determining that the subscriber records comprise the record including the target hardware identifier, associating an International Mobile Subscriber Identity, IMSI, to the target hardware identifier;
storing one or more IMSI activation or deactivation blocks in a blockchain, each IMSI activation or deactivation block including the target hardware identifier, the IMSI or a previously used IMSI, a status indication and a time-stamp indicating when the IMSI or the previously used IMSI has been associated with the hardware identifier for the IMSI activation or deactivation block, wherein:
when the IMSI is associated with the hardware identifier for an IMSI activation block, the network device is capable of writing “activated” in the status indication of the IMSI activation block, and
when the previously used IMSI ceased being associated with the hardware identifier for an IMSI deactivation block, the network device is capable of writing “deactivated” in the status indication of the IMSI deactivation block.