Content delivery system and method
AssigneeBritish Telecommunications public limited company
InventorsVidhyalakshmi KARTHIKEYAN, Detlef NAUCK
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Abstract
A method of distributing content from a source in a content delivery network, the method comprising: monitoring requests for delivery of an item of content; obtaining a prediction of future demand in respect of the said content; applying a unicast-to-multicast switching decision algorithm, the switching decision algorithm taking into account the prediction of future demand and arranged to determine whether at least one trigger condition is met; and, dependent on the outcome of the unicast-to-multicast switching decision algorithm, initiating the transition of a plurality of unicast data streams to a multicast data stream in respect of the item of content.
Claims16
A method of distributing content from a source in a content delivery network, the method comprising:
- monitoring requests for delivery of an item of content;
- obtaining a prediction of future demand in respect of the said content;
- applying a unicast-to-multicast switching decision algorithm, the switching decision algorithm taking into account the prediction of future demand and arranged to determine whether at least one trigger condition is met;
- and
- dependent on the outcome of the unicast-to-multicast switching decision algorithm, initiating the transition of a plurality of unicast data streams to a multicast data stream in respect of the item of content,
- wherein the prediction of future demand in respect of the said content is based on data unrelated to actual demand for said content.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.