407 results about "Dynamic bandwidth allocation" patented technology

A method for providing network access to a shared access communications medium for a plurality of users includes the steps of conducting predictive admission control by arbitrating user requests for access to the shared medium based on predicted aggregate demands, conducting lookahead scheduling for use in making user channel assignments by forecasting schedule transmission opportunities one or more channels of the shared medium, and balancing load by making channel assignments such that a plurality users are each assigned a respective channel of the shared medium based upon a predicted need. Congestion parameters can predicted for each channel of the shared medium and mapped to a congestion measure using a mathematical function that takes into account packet loss rate, packet delay, packet delay jitter, and available capacity.

Methods for providing video on demand service from an Application Service Provider (“ASP”) to a user over a Regional / Access Network (“RAN”) are provided. A request for a video on demand application flow may be received from the user. In response to the request, information may be obtained from the RAN regarding the capabilities of the user's Customer Premises Equipment (“CPE”). A profile may then be forwarded from the ASP to the RAN that specifies at least one policy regarding the transmission of data associated with the video on demand application flow across the RAN. The data associated with the video on demand application flow may then be forwarded across the RAN in accordance with the profile. The RAN may also be provided a default profile that specifies default policies that apply with respect to video on demand application flows that are transmitted across the RAN prior to obtaining information from the RAN regarding the capabilities of the CPE of any specific user. The user specific profiles may then be used to alter one or more policies specified in the default profile.

A system capable of dynamically reserving bandwidth and adjusting bandwidth reservations for active sessions of data communication in a data communications device is provided. The system generally separates the operation of bandwidth allocation and adjustment from the operation of data transport through the device, thereby allowing bandwidth reservations and adjustments to be made without disturbing sessions of data communication that are actively being transported through the device. The system can accept requests to allocate or reserve bandwidth in a data communications device using bandwidth reservation protocols such as RSVP. The reservation requests create sender state data that can be used to compute resource allocation data. The resource allocation data can be used to label data storage locations in a data storage mechanism according to the required bandwidth reservations. A data scheduling apparatus, which is ignorant of particular sessions and specific amounts of reserved bandwidth, examines data and deposits data into data storage locations having a label corresponding to a session identification specified in the data, if any. If an unknown or no session identification is specified in the data, the data scheduler deposits data into a data storage location that is unlabeled or that has an unreserved label. Thus session bandwidth is determined by the percentage of labeled data storage locations for the session. Changes in bandwidth reservations are reflected in the separate operation of alterations made in the data storage labeling scheme, and do not affect the data scheduler, or data dequeuing mechanisms, thus allowing data sessions to continue without interruption during bandwidth adjustments.

The communication system includes a hybride fiber / coax distribution network. A head end provides for downstream transmission of telephony and control data in a first frequency bandwidth over the hybrid fiber / coax distribution network and reception of upstream telephony and control data in a second frequency bandwidth over the hybrid fiber / coax distribution network. The head end includes head end multicarrier modem for modulating at least downstream telephony information on a plurality of orthogonal carriers in the first frequency bandwidth and demodulating at least upstream telephony information modulated on a plurality of orthogonal carriers in the second frequency bandwidth. The head end further includes a controller operatively connected to the head end multicarrier modem for controlling transmission of the downstream telephony information and downstream control data and for controlling receipt of the upstream control data and upstream telephony information. The system further includes service units, each service unit operatively connected to the hybrid fiber / coax distribution network for upstream transmission of telephony and control data in the second frequency bandwidth and for receipt of the downstream control data and telephony in the first frequency bandwidth. Each service unit includes a service unit multicarrier modem for modulating at least the upstream telephony information on at least one carrier orthogonal at the head end terminal to another carrier in the second frequency bandwidth and for demodulating at least downstream telephony information modulated on at least a band of a plurality of orthogonal carriers in the first frequency bandwidth. Each service unit also includes a controller operatively connected to the service unit multicarrier modem for controlling the modulation of and demodulation performed by the service unit multicarrier modem. A method of monitoring communication channels, a distributed loop method for adjusting transmission characteristics to allow for transmission of data in a multi-point to point communication system, a polyphase filter technique for providing ingress protection and a scanning method for identifying frequency bands to be used for transmission by service units are also included. Also provided is a method and apparatus for performing a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). In one embodiment, a scalable FFT system is built using a novel dual-radix butterfly core.

Techniques for optimizing bandwidth usage while controlling latency. A latency mitigating congestion avoidance and control technique is described that is suitable for use with unreliable transport protocols. Embodiments of the present invention facilitate communication of data for applications that communicate using unreliable communication protocols and that would like to maximize use of available bandwidth but cannot tolerate high latencies. Techniques are described for preventing latency from exceeding a certain level, without destroying the ability of an application or system to probe for additional available bandwidth and maximize bandwidth usage.

Methods, apparatuses and systems directed to improving the efficiency of bandwidth allocation schemes by adapting to slow-start mechanisms associated with network communications protocols, such as the TCP / IP protocol suite. In one implementation, the present invention scales down the initial target rate assigned to a data flow to a fraction of an initial estimate of the effective rate capacity of the communications path between two hosts. As packets are received, the target rate is gradually increased, eventually up to the detected rate capacity of the communications path. Implementations of the present invention improve the efficiency of bandwidth allocation by reducing the over-allocation of bandwidth to data flows during the slow-start phase, leaving more bandwidth available to other data flows.

A new concept of soft quality-of-service (soft-QoS) is developed that bridges the gap between the efficient provision of network-level QoS and the requirements of multimedia applications. Soft-QoS is defined by a satisfaction index (a number that rates users' perceptual quality) and a softness profile (a function that captures the robustness of multimedia applications to network congestion). Another aspect of this invention is a bandwidth allocation scheme for multimedia applications with soft-QoS requirements is presented. The implementation of the bandwidth allocation scheme on a network element realizes a soft-QoS controller. The controller uses the connections' softness profiles to compute a bandwidth allocation that maximizes the minimum satisfaction index of active connections.

A dynamic upstream bandwidth allocation scheme is disclosed, i.e., limited sharing with traffic prediction (LSTP), to improve the bandwidth efficiency of upstream transmission over PONs. LSTP adopts the PON MAC control messages, and dynamically allocates bandwidth according to the on-line traffic load. The ONU bandwidth requirement includes the already buffered data and a prediction of the incoming data, thus reducing the frame delay and alleviating the data loss. ONUs are served by the OLT in a fixed order in LSTP to facilitate the traffic prediction. Each optical network unit (ONU) classifies its local traffic into three classes with descending priorities: expedited forwarding (EF), assured forwarding (AF), and best effort (BE). Data with higher priority replace data with lower priority when the buffer is full. In order to alleviate uncontrolled delay and unfair drop of the lower priority data, the priority-based scheduling is employed to deliver the buffered data in a particular transmission timeslot. The bandwidth allocation incorporates the service level agreements (SLAs) and the on-line traffic dynamics. The basic limited sharing with traffic prediction (LSTP) scheme is extended to serve the classified network traffic.

The present invention relates to a bandwidth allocation apparatus and a method thereof. The present invention provides a method for adaptively allocating and controlling radio channels to multimedia traffic having various characteristics. Particularly, the present invention proposes a method for maximizing a system resource use rate while satisfying a communication QoS requirement for individual video traffic. Therefore, the adaptive bandwidth allocation method according to the present invention guarantees system performance and user-required communication QoS.

A method of transporting a packet oriented client signal which uses a buffer-to-buffer flow control mechanism over a synchronous transmission network by assigning an arbitrary synchronous payload, where the synchronous payload bandwidth may be significantly smaller than the full bandwidth of the client signal. Flow control over the synchronous network is provided by the buffer-to-buffer flow control mechanism of the client signal to automatically regulate the data throughput to ensure no data can be lost. The method is independent of the Client Signal Data Rate and the provisioned SDH / SONET bandwidth, and SDH / SONET payload which may be non-concatenated, contiguously concatenated, or virtually concatenated. In particular, the method may be used to support the transport of Fibre Channel (1G, 2G and 4G), and ESCON (200M) in a synchronous payload.

A communication network includes a plurality of communication nodes, each of which can transmit data at a variable bandwidth. Each communication node predicts its own bandwidth requirements, and communicates its predicted own bandwidth requirements to the network. The nodes acquire bandwidth requirement information of other communication nodes on the network, and each one determines its own bandwidth allocation according to a common bandwidth allocation scheme. The common bandwidth allocation scheme is available to the plurality of communication nodes.

A computer-implemented method, apparatus, system, article of manufacture, and computer readable storage medium provide the ability to stream media content to multiple users. A first stream of / for the media content is streamed from a first location in the media content to a first user. A request is received from the first user to seek to a seek location (e.g., forward or backward) in the media content. A second location in the media content compatible with the seek location is determined. The second location is based on a second stream being streamed to one or more second users. The second stream is then streamed to the first user and the second user.

A system and method for adjusting a video bit rate (VBR) over a network includes reducing the VBR if the network incurs a packet loss (PL) that is greater than a PL threshold; increasing the VBR if the PL is less than or equal to the PL threshold over a maximum integer number of time intervals; and increasing the maximum integer number of time intervals if the PL is greater than the packet loss threshold at the increased VBR. In addition, the VBR is increased over consecutive time intervals until a maximum video bit rate is restored, if the PL over each consecutive time interval is less than or equal to the packet loss threshold.

A network device and method include token buckets, each token bucket associated with one of clients and virtual ports and configured to process information based on a predefined bandwidth and a strict priority / weighted deficit round robin. A maximum rate shaper module and a minimum rate meter module shape and meter whether any of the clients or virtual ports have exceeded a predefined threshold. A scheduler is configured to schedule services of the clients and to calculate a new bandwidth allocation for at least one of the clients or virtual ports when the at least one of the clients or virtual ports has exceeded the predefined threshold, the new bandwidth allocation replacing the predefined bandwidth and being proportional to the predefined bandwidth for each of the clients or virtual ports.

A method and integrated hardware system for dynamic bandwidth allocation in EPONs which—in sharp contrast to the prior art—provides superior upstream transmission characteristics including QoS considerations consistent with any Service Level Agreement that exists between a customer and a service provider. Advantageously, our inventive method and system for dynamic bandwidth allocation provides fair and efficient upstream bandwidth management in addition to enhanced traffic performance for customer traffic within the EPON. For a service provider, our invention permits the deployment of intelligent traffic management and QoS characteristics capable of supporting existing or novel voice, video, and data services over the EPON.

Bandwidth allocated between the traffic classes of a network path is dynamically reallocated when one or more traffic classes have insufficient available bandwidth to support a service request for the traffic classes, wherein the reallocation occurs without modifying the traffic class bandwidth allocations enforced by router mechanisms. A provisioning system maintains an available bandwidth indication for each traffic class, which indications are decremented as a service request is admitted to the path. If a requested traffic class has insufficient available bandwidth to support a request, one or more other traffic classes can loan bandwidth to the requested traffic class by decrementing the available bandwidth indicators for the one or more other traffic classes in the amount of the insufficiency, thereby indicating that less bandwidth is available in these classes for future requests. The provisioning system also maintains an indication of the amount of bandwidth each traffic class loans to the other traffic classes.

Methods, devices, systems, and computer programs are provided that allow for optimally allocating bandwidth in an ad hoc, wireless network configured to support at least one guaranteed feasible flow allocation. According to some of these methods, devices, systems, Quality of Service guarantees may be provided across the network. Also, in many instances, the methods are iterative and allow for convergence to an optimized bandwidth allocation.

The present invention relates to a switch for processing data units, such as IF data packets. The switch can be implemented as a router that includes a plurality of input ports, a plurality of output ports and a switch fabric capable of establishing logical pathways to interconnect a certain input port with a certain output port. A characterizing element of the router is its ability to control bandwidth usage on a basis of a logical pathway. This prevents congestion to occur in the switch fabric and also at the level of the output ports. For every active logical pathway the router sets-up a bandwidth control mechanism including at least one queue to hold data units received at an input port. The bandwidth control mechanism performs an accounting operation to determine the average bandwidth usage and if less than a threshold requests for releasing data units in the switch fabric are sent to the switch fabric controller. When the threshold is exceeded the bandwidth control mechanism stops sending requests for service to the switch fabric controller. The system also supports priorities. Instead of stopping the issuance of signals requesting release of data packets the priority level of the queue (reflected in a priority field in the signal requesting release of a data packet) changes from HI to LO. The switch fabric controller is designed to recognize priority requests and will accept LO priority requests only when there are no other HI priority requests pending. The present invention also provides a data transport device which includes a plurality of nodes interconnected by a physical link that establishes two ring-shaped paths on which data is transported on opposite directions. Each node is capable of sending a control message to the upstream node to advise the upstream node of the data carrying requirements of the node at which the message has originated. The upstream node can then throttle the introduction of data in the paths to preserve capacity that can be used by the downstream nodes.

Quality of Service (QoS) and / or bandwidth allocation can be provided for interactive gaming via a Regional / Access Network (RAN). The RAN can provide end-to-end transport between a Gaming Application Service Provider (GASP) and a Customer Premises Network (CPN) that includes a Routing Gateway (RG). Quality of Service (QoS) and / or bandwidth allocation can be provided by determining different levels of subscription service for different subscribers to an interactive game between a plurality of participants. Different QoS and / or bandwidth allocations can be provided to different gaming traffic flows associated with the different subscribers to the interactive game based on the different levels of subscription service of the different subscribers.

An approach is provided for utilizing dynamic bandwidth allocation for recording content. A recording manager generates a request for bandwidth for a future recording of a programming content to be delivered to a set-top box. The recording manager then receives a response indicating a dynamic bandwidth allocation for the future recording and schedules the future recording of the programming content based on the dynamic bandwidth allocation.

A dynamic bandwidth allocation method of an Ethernet passive optical network, comprises a predictor and a rule of QoS-promoted dynamic bandwidth allocation (PQ-DBA); the predictor predicts a client behavior and numbers of various kinds of packets by using a pipeline scheduling predictor consisted of a pipelined recurrent neural network (PRNN), and a learning rule of the extended recursive least squares (ERLS); the present invention establishes a better QoS traffic management for the OLT-allocated ONU bandwidth and client packets sent by priority.

A method, a Software-Defined Networking (SDN) controller, and a network include operation of a multi-layer SDN network and uniquely identifying streaming content on higher layers relative to the multi-layer SDN network through deep packet inspection; associating the streaming content to a multi-layer service on the SDN network; and monitoring the streaming content on the SDN network over the multi-layer service. This can include dynamically adjusting bandwidth of the multi-layer service utilizing OpenFlow on the SDN network based on the monitoring. The deep packet inspection can utilize a Bloom filter embedded in a resource identifier of the streaming content by the content provider, wherein the embedded Bloom filter is transparent to content players and does not require changes to storage on associated web servers for the streaming content.

Mechanisms for providing a subscriber-side interface with a passive optical network are described herein. An optical network termination (ONT) having an integrated broadband passive optical network processor is utilized to receive downstream data from an optical line termination (OLT) via a passive optical network and provide the contents of the downstream data to one or more subscriber devices via one or more data interfaces. Similarly, the ONT is adapted to receive and transmit upstream data from the one or more subscriber devices to the OLT via the passive optical network. The ONT preferably implements one or burst buffers for buffering upstream and / or downstream data. The ONT can be adapted to notify the OLT of the status of the burst buffer, thereby allowing the OLT to modify the bandwidth allocations.

The invention relates to optical communication field, discloses a collating device and method for dynamic bandwidth in source-free optical network, and the distribution method for dynamic bandwidth is transparent, which can satisfy the requirement for different service, improve the utilization rate of bandwidth, realize the fair distribution for bandwidth, good haleness, real time, and can distribute bandwidth for different port, and support to release offline bandwidth of ONU. The distributing device for dynamic bandwidth in source-free optical network includes ascending service active fiber network unit bit-mapping register, ascending service active port bit-mapping table, ascending virtual media accessing control sub-layer information table, descending virtual media accessing control sub-layer authorization information table; said distributing device for dynamic bandwidth, consults said fiber network unit active information, port active information and length information of sending data, according to preset priority of different service, process the service flow according to priority according to preset priority, and distributes the dynamic bandwidth for ports.

The present invention relates to a method, a system and an apparatus for implementing bandwidth allocation and scheduling management based on a relay station. A mapping information unit for controlling a RS (MAPRS) is set in a frame structure of the physical layer of a BS and an extended frame structure of the physical layer of a BS is constructed in a frame structure of the BS physical layer. The BS constructs a mapping information message MAPRS for controlling the relay station RS base on the extended frame structure of the BS physical layer, and performs bandwidth allocation and scheduling management of a communication channel of the RS by the RS according to the MAPRS message. Through the present invention, a bandwidth allocation is implemented mainly at the BS, and a service scheduling is implemented mainly at the BS. The RS only performs an uplink or downlink scheduling of the RS passively. The complexity of the RS reduced effectively. The Multi-hop relay problem is solved using a bandwidth request relay and a bandwidth allocation relay, without introducing any complex technologies and procedures of the bandwidth request, the bandwidth allocation and the scheduling management. The complexity of the BWA relay network is simplified.

An adaptive weighted round robin scheduling apparatus and method schedules variable-length frame transmissions from a plurality of output queues having different transmission priorities by first allocating, for each queue, a number of bandwidth segments for a bandwidth cycle and a number of transmission opportunities for a round robin cycle, and then processing the queues consecutively in a round-robin fashion, beginning with a highest priority queue, until none of the queues has any bandwidth remaining. More specifically, during each iteration of a round robin cycle, a queue is permitted to transmit a frame if the queue has at least one remaining transmission opportunity, the queue has a frame ready for transmission, and the queue has at least one remaining bandwidth segment, and furthermore the number of transmission opportunities for the queue is decremented by at least one. Upon transmitting a frame, the number of bandwidth segments for the queue is decreased by the number of bandwidth segments in the frame. If a queue has no frame ready for transmission, then the queue may be either penalized, in which case the number of bandwidth segments for the queue is reduced, or forced to forfeit its bandwidth segments, in which case any remaining bandwidth segments are reallocated to other queues and the number of bandwidth segments and the number of transmission opportunities for the queue are set to zero.