US Patent 9526032 Network bandwidth sharing for small mobile devices

Client devices with wireless functionality, but without wide area network or cellular network functionality, can obtain network access via a host device, where the host device has network access. Such network access can be obtained when a client device of a user is in local range of a host device, e.g., of a different user. The host device may enable network bandwidth sharing with settings that specify a threshold of resource usage (e.g., battery or bandwidth limit). An authentication process can confirm that either one or both of a client device and a host device are registered for the network bandwidth sharing. A server can monitor the amount of resources shared by the host device, and manage incentives to the user of the host device.