Method and system for establishing a cross-carrier, multilayer communications path
AssigneeSprint Communications Company L.P.
InventorsWesam Alanqar, Mark Lloyd Jones, Lynn Andrew Neir
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Abstract
A method and system is provided for establishing a secure intercarrier, interlayer communications path that can allocate bandwidth on demand. Using the present invention, one network carrier uses the resources of another carrier to communicate with an otherwise unreachable target component. As bandwidth capacity is reached, the intercarrier connection can be dynamically migrated to a lower network layer. Transmissions of the upper layer are mapped into the lower layer to satisfy the additional bandwidth requested by the connection.
Claims15
One or more computer-readable media having computer-useable instructions embedded thereon for causing a network element to perform a method that comprises:
- receiving at the network element a request from a first carrier to communicate data to a second carrier, wherein the first carrier is associated with a first network domain and the second carrier is associated with a second network domain;
- and
- fulfilling the request via the second carrier in a first layer, thereby establishing an intercarrier, interlayer communications path between the first carrier and the second carrier, wherein bandwidth is automatically allocated from a second layer to the communications path by way of the network element.
One or more computer-readable media having computer-useable instructions embedded thereon for causing a network element to perform a method that comprises:
- receiving at the network element a request from a first carrier to communicate data to a second carrier, wherein the first carrier is associated with a first network domain and the second carrier is associated with a second network domain;
- and
- fulfilling the request via the second carrier in a first layer, thereby establishing an intercarrier, interlayer communications path between the first carrier and the second carrier, wherein bandwidth is automatically allocated from a second layer to the communications path by way of the network element;
- wherein fulfilling the request includes
- (1) providing a carrier-to-carrier bridging control, and
- (2) providing for the transmission of the data via the second carrier across the second network domain, whereby the data is communicated from the first carrier through the second carrier by passing through the carrier-to-carrier bridging control, and
- wherein an automatic allocation of bandwidth from the second layer to the communications path includes aggregating a plurality of first-layer signals into one or more second-layer signals.
One or more computer-readable media having computer-useable instructions embodied thereon for causing a network element to perform a method that comprises:
- fulfilling a request received at the network element from a first carrier having a first network domain to communicate data via a second carrier having a second carrier network domain in a first layer, thereby establishing an intercarrier, interlayer communications path between the first carrier and the second carrier;
- and
- automatically allocating bandwidth from a second layer to the communications path by way of the network element.
A system for communicating data through a network domain of a communications carrier by utilizing a carrier-to-carrier bridging control to establish a data connection through the network domain, the system comprising:
- a first request-fulfillment component that facilitates intralayer communication;
- a second request-fulfillment component that facilitates intracarrier communication;
- and
- a bandwidth-allocation component logically coupled to the first and second request-fulfillment components that automatically allocates cross-carrier bandwidth from a first layer to a second layer of a network domain.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.