US 11,638,057 B2 · Content delivery

Abstract

Described is a method of managing a network for delivering content in a hybrid unicast/multicast network, where content is requested by clients over unicast, but all or some of the content is delivered in part over multicast. A client requests content (in the form of segments) and receive the responses (segments) over unicast via a first proxy. The first proxy measures the time between requests and associated requested segment sizes. These measurements are used to effectively determine a unicast request rate given by the segment size divided by the time between requests. Subsequent requested segments can then be delivered over multicast over a portion of the route to the client using a multicast rate that is set as a function of (for example, 110% of) the unicast request rate. In general, the multicast path will be from a second proxy to the first proxy.

Claims10

Dependent claims

A method of managing content delivery over a network to a client device, wherein the content comprises a plurality of segments, said method comprising:

i) receiving unicast requests for a plurality of segments from a client device at a first network element;
ii) receiving the requested plurality of segments over unicast at the first network element;
iii) determining the time interval between requests for each given segment;
iv) determining the size of each given segment;
v) estimating a delivery rate as the quotient of the total size of the segments and the total of the time intervals associated with the segments;
vi) receiving unicast requests for further segments from the client device at the first network element;
vii) delivering further segments over multicast to the first network element, wherein the multicast rate used to deliver the further segments is a function of the estimated delivery rate.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Content delivery

Life of this patent

Content delivery

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims10