US 6,272,550 B1Granted

Method and apparatus for acknowledging top data packets

AssigneeVerizon Laboratories Inc.

InventorsShuang Deng, Robert Olshansky

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A data communication network includes a network access unit for coupling one or more computer devices to the network. The network typically has asymmetric upstream and downstream data transmission rates. The network access device implements a method for acknowledging data packets. When a new packet is received by the network access unit from one of the computer devices, the new packet is placed in an outbound queue in the network access unit. When the new packet contains an acknowledgment, previous acknowledgment packets in the outbound queue that have the same source and destination addresses as the new packet are identified and discarded. Remaining packets are transmitted from the outbound queue in the network access unit. By discarding acknowledgment packets in the network access unit, throughput is increased.

Claims8

Dependent claims

A network access unit for coupling one or more computer devices to a data communication network, comprising:

a plurality of outbound queues configured to temporarily store packets for transmission on the data communication network;
a receiver, operatively coupled to one of the computer devices, configured to receive a packet from the one of the computer devices and to place the packet on one of the plurality of outbound queues, the packet having at least a source address and a destination address;
a first threshold unit configured to allow further action if the packet is an acknowledgement packet;
a second threshold unit configured to allow further action if a count of the number of packets on the one of the plurality of outbound queues exceeds a predefined threshold;
a third threshold unit configured to allow further action if the source address and the destination address of the packet are identical to the source and destination address information of at least one of the packets already on the one of the plurality of outbound queues;
a mark unit configured to mark an acknowledgment-only packet on the one of the plurality of outbound queues having source and destination address information identical to the source address and the destination address of the packet;
a discard unit configured to discard marked acknowledgement-only packets on the one of the plurality of outbound queues;
and
a transmitter configured to transmit remaining temporarily stored packets from the plurality of outbound queues to the data communication network.

6 more elements

A network access unit for coupling one or more computer devices to a data communication network, comprising:

a plurality of outbound queues configured to temporarily store packets for transmission on the data communication network;
a receiver, operatively coupled to one of the computer devices, configured to receive a packet from one of the computer devices and to place the packet on one of the plurality of outbound queues, the packet having at least a source address and a destination address;
a first threshold unit configured to allow further action if the packet is an acknowledgement packet;
a second threshold unit configured to allow further action if a count of the number of packets on the one of the plurality of outbound queues exceeds a predefined threshold;
a third threshold unit configured to allow further action if the source address and the destination address of the packet are identical to the source and destination address information of at least one of the packets already on the one of the plurality of outbound queues;
a mark unit configured to mark an acknowledgment-only packet on the one of the plurality of outbound queues having source and destination address information identical to the source address and the destination address of the packet;
a discard unit configured to discard marked acknowledgement-only packets on the one of the plurality of outbound queues;
a merge unit configured to merge acknowledgment-only packets having source and destination address information identical to the source address and destination address of a data-carrying packet on the one of the plurality of outbound queues into the data-carrying packet;
and
a transmitter configured to transmit remaining temporarily stored packets from the plurality of outbound queues to the data communication network.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 09/359,077Filed 22 Jul 1999 · continuation
Priority: 6 Feb 1997
Granted: 7 Aug 2001
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification9 codes

H04L 1/1635
Details of the supervisory signal: cumulative acknowledgement, i.e. the acknowledgement message applying to all previous messages
H04L 1/1854
Arrangements specially adapted for the receiver end: scheduling and prioritising arrangements
H04L 9/40
Cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for secret or secure communications; Network security protocols: network security protocols
H04L 47/193
At layers above the network layer: at the transport layer, e.g. TCP related