Method of optimising web page access in wireless networks

An apparatus for optimising web page access and download in wireless communication networks comprising a processing unit for:

• receiving a web page request from user equipment,
• downloading an original web page from a server hosting the original web page, and
• processing the web page so as to separate image and non-image portions of the web page and replace images of the image portions by correspondingly sized and located placeholders,
• wherein the processing unit:
• acts as a performance enhancement proxying server independent of the user equipment,
• converts the original web page into an optimised web page in which at least part of the images of the original web page are grouped into a single composite image, and the composite image is superimposed on an image-free web page comprising the non-image portions of the original web page and the placeholders, and
• downloads the optimised web page to the user equipment.

A communication network for accelerating access to web pages present on web servers connected to the interne, the communication network comprising at least one web page processing unit for:

• receiving a web page request from user equipment,
• downloading an original web page from a server hosting the original web page, and
• processing the web page so as to separate image and non-image portions of the web page and replace images of the image portions by correspondingly sized and located placeholders,
• wherein the processing unit:
• acts as a performance enhancing proxying server independent of the user equipment,
• converts the original web page into an optimised web page in which at least part of the images of the original web page are grouped into a single composite image, and the composite image is superimposed on an image-free web page comprising the non-image portions of the original web page and the placeholders, and
• downloads the optimised web page to the user equipment.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing a set of instructions that cause a computer to perform a method of optimising web page access and download in a wireless communications network, the method comprising:

• processing a requested original web page to separate image and non-image portions and replace the image portions by correspondingly sized and located placeholders;
• combining at least some of the images present in the original web page into a single composite image;
• creating an optimised web page by superimposing the composite image onto an image-free web page comprising the non-image portions of the original web page and the placeholders;
• and
• downloading the optimised web page to a requesting user.

A system for optimising web page access and download in wireless communication networks by processing an original web page requested by user equipment, the system comprising a processing unit for:

• providing a link to a performance enhancing proxying server independent of the user equipment for performing the processing of the original web page;
• causing the performance enhancing proxying server to:
• separate image and non-image portions of the original web page and to replace the images of the image portion by correspondingly sized and located placeholders, and
• convert the original web page into an optimised web page in which at least part of the images in the original web page are grouped into a single composite image, and the composite image is superimposed on an image-free web page comprising the non-image portions of the original web page and the placeholders;
• and
• causing the optimised web page to be downloaded to the user equipment.