US 8,169,914 B2Granted

Method and node for transmitting data over a communication network using negative acknowledgment

AssigneeSling Media Pvt Ltd

InventorsParimal Bajpai, Vikal Kumar Jain, Aparna Sarma Akella

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Abstract

A method of transmitting data over a communication network using negative acknowledgment is presented. In the method, a stream of data packets is transmitted from a first node of the network to a second node of the network. All but at least two of the stream of data packets is successfully received at the second node, wherein the data packets that are not successfully received are not located sequentially within the stream of data packets. A status packet is transmitted from the second node to the first node, wherein the status packet includes an indication of each of the data packets that were not successfully received. In response to receiving the status packet at the first node, the data packets that were not successfully received at the second node are retransmitted from the first node to the second node in response to receiving the status packet.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method of transmitting data over a communication network using negative acknowledgment, the method comprising:

transmitting a stream of data packets from a first node of the network to a second node of the network;
receiving a status packet transmitted from the second node to the first node after the second node successfully receives all but at least two of the stream of data packets, wherein the at least two of the stream of data packets are non-sequential within the stream of data packets, and wherein the status packet is transmitted from the second node to the first node, and wherein the status packet comprises an indication of each of the at least two of the stream of data packets;
and
retransmitting the at least two of the stream of data packets from the first node to the second node in response to receiving the status packet;
wherein each of the stream of data packets transmitted form the first node to the second node comprises a timestamp;
and
wherein the status packet is transmitted from the second node to the first node when at least one of the stream of data packets subsequent to at least one of the at least two of the stream of data packets is received at the second node, and the timestamp of the at least one of the stream of data packets is less than a time at which the at least one of the stream of data packets was received at the second node, minus a measured jitter of the stream of data packets.

4 more elements

A network node, comprising:

a communication interface configured to transmit a stream of data packets to another network node, and to receive a status packet from the other network node indicating that at least two of the stream of data packets were not received successfully at the other node, wherein the at least two of the stream of data packets are non-sequential within the stream of data packets;
and
control circuitry configured to process the status packet and cause the communication interface to retransmit the at least two of the stream of data packets to the other network node;
wherein the control circuitry is configured to control a rate at which the communication interface transmits the stream of data packets to the other network node, wherein the rate is based on an estimated bandwidth of a connection between the network node and the other network node, wherein the estimated bandwidth is recalculated periodically;
and wherein the control circuitry is configured to recalculate the estimated bandwidth by increasing the estimated bandwidth by a first percentage of the rate at which the communication interface transmits the stream of data packets if a loss percentage of the stream of data packets at the other network node is below a predetermined level;
and
wherein the control circuitry is configured to set the estimated bandwidth to a mean of the estimated bandwidth and the rate at which the communication interface transmits the stream of data packets if the loss percentage of the stream of data packets at the other network node is at least at the predetermined level.

4 more elements

A network node, comprising:

a communication interface configured to receive a stream of data packets from another network node;
memory buffers, wherein each of the memory buffers is configured to store one of the stream of data packets received from the other network node;
and
control circuitry configured to generate a status packet indicating that at least two of the stream of data packets were not received successfully at the communication interface, wherein the at least two of the stream of data packets are non-sequential within the stream of data packets, and to transfer the status packet to the communication interface;
wherein the control circuitry is configured to include an indication of a number of memory buffers not storing one of the stream of data packets in the status packet;
and wherein the communication interface is configured to transmit the status packet to the other network node, and wherein the indication of the number of memory buffers not storing one of the stream of data packets is higher that an actual number of memory buffers not storing one of the stream of data packets when a roundtrip time between the network node and the other network node attains a predetermined level.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 12/404,920Filed 16 Mar 2009
Published: US 2010/0232437 A116 Sep 2010
Granted: 1 May 2012
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification5 codes

H04L 1/1628
Details of the supervisory signal: list acknowledgements, i.e. the acknowledgement message consisting of a list of identifiers, e.g. of sequence…
H04L 1/1864
Arrangements specially adapted for the receiver end: aRQ related signaling
H04L 1/1893
Arrangements specially adapted for the transmitter end: physical mapping arrangements
H04L 1/1896
Arrangements specially adapted for the transmitter end: aRQ related signaling