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AssigneeNortel Networks Limited
InventorsYalun Li, Carl F. Cao, Leslie K. Brost
Estimating the term…
Systems and methods which allow the under-utilization of high-speed radio channels to be reduced significantly are provided which feature packet buffering and buffer management for a specific link segment of the end-to-end TCP connection. Dynamic rate control (DRC) is performed in a manner which transparently uses the advertised receiver window size mechanism provided within TCP, to maintain a steady stream of packets to be transported onto a long and variable delay high-speed channel. A queue is managed by dynamically relating the current size of the queue to the amount of incoming data by enlarging or shrinking the client advertised window size to the predicted buffer growth. DRC does not perform end-to-end flow control, but rather it supplements this function of TCP. The invention may be implemented as an agent of TCP in the sense that it is hidden in the middle of the network.
A method of requesting packets from a first end-point for transmission to a second end-point over a first channel followed by a second channel which is a wireless channel having a dynamically changing capacity due to a highly variable delay, the method comprising at an interface between the first and second channels:
An apparatus for requesting packets from a first end-point for transmission to a second end-point over a first channel followed by a second channel which is a wireless channel having a dynamically changing capacity due to a highly variable delay, the apparatus comprising a queue adapted to queue packets and having a queue length equal to the number of packets queued, and a processing element adapted to queue packets received on the first channel in the queue, and to dequeue them onto the second channel as capacity of the second channel permits, the processing element being further adapted to make an estimate representative of the instantaneous capacity of the second channel, and as a function of the queue length and the estimate, request packet transmissions from the first end-point in a manner which avoids the queue becoming empty when the first end-point still has further packets to transmit.
An apparatus for requesting packets from a first end-point for transmission to a second end-point over a first channel followed by a second channel which is a wireless channel having a dynamically changing capacity due to a highly variable delay, the method comprising at an interface between the first and second channels:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.