US 8,559,305 B2Granted

Communication device, communication method, and computer program product

AssigneeBrother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha

InventorsJun Miyazawa, Kenji Oike

Life of this patent

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Abstract

A communication device transmits a plurality of measurement packets to another communication device while successively varying a transmitting interval. After the plurality of measurement packets have been transmitted, the communication device determines a location of a usable bandwidth in relation to a first bandwidth range that is a range within which bandwidths are measured. The communication device resets the first bandwidth range to a second bandwidth range that is a range within which the bandwidths are measured and in which at least one of an upper limit and a lower limit is different from the corresponding limit in the first bandwidth range in accordance with the determination. The communication device selects a bandwidth that will be used when the measurement packets are transmitted. The communication device transmits the measurement packets to the other communication device using the bandwidth that has been selected.

Claims11

Dependent claims

A communication device configured to be connected to a network, comprising:

a processor, and
a memory storing computer-readable instructions,
wherein when the computer-readable instructions are executed by the processor, the processor is configured to:
make a first transmission of a plurality of groups of packets to another communication device, each of the plurality of groups of packets including a plurality of measurement packets that are transmitted with a transmitting interval, transmitting intervals of the plurality of groups of packets differing from each other;
make a first determination of a location of a usable bandwidth in relation to a first bandwidth range, based on a result packet that is transmitted from the other communication device in response to the first transmission, the first bandwidth range being a range within which bandwidths are measured, the usable bandwidth being one of the bandwidths that can be used in the network, and the result packet containing information that pertains to a relationship between the transmitting interval and a receiving interval at which the plurality of groups of packets are received by the other communication device;
reset the first bandwidth range to a second bandwidth range in accordance with a determination that has been made by the first determination, the second bandwidth range being a range within which the bandwidths are to be measured and in which at least one of an upper limit and a lower limit is different from the corresponding limit in the first bandwidth range;
select, in order to determine whether the usable bandwidth is located within the second bandwidth range that has been set by the resetting, a bandwidth from among a plurality of bandwidths that have been selected from within the second bandwidth range and based on the setting by the resetting, the bandwidth being used when a group of packets is transmitted to the other communication device;
and
make a second transmission of the group of packets to the other communication device using the bandwidth that has been selected by the selecting.

6 more elements

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores a computer-executable program for communication device that is configured to be connected to a network to carry out communication with another communication device, the program comprising instructions for:

performing a first transmission of a plurality of groups of packets to another communication device that is configured to be connected to a network, each of the plurality of groups of packets including a plurality of measurement packets that are transmitted with a transmitting interval, transmitting intervals of the plurality of groups of packets differing from each other;
determining a location of a usable bandwidth in relation to a first bandwidth range in response to the first transmission, based on a result packet that is transmitted from the other communication device, the first bandwidth range being a range within which bandwidths are measured, the usable bandwidth being one of the bandwidths that can be used in the network, and the result packet containing information that pertains to a relationship between the transmitting interval and a receiving interval at which the plurality of groups of packets are received by the other communication device;
resetting the first bandwidth range to a second bandwidth range in accordance with the determining of the location of the usable bandwidth in relation to the first bandwidth range, the second bandwidth range being a range within which the bandwidths are to be measured and in which at least one of an upper limit and a lower limit is different from the corresponding limit in the first bandwidth range;
selecting a bandwidth from among a plurality of bandwidths that have been selected from within the second bandwidth range and based on the setting of the second bandwidth range, the bandwidth being used when a group of packets is transmitted to the other communication device, in order to determine whether the usable bandwidth is located within the second bandwidth range that has been set;
and
performing a second transmission of the group of packets to the other communication device using the selected bandwidth.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 13/029,586Filed 17 Feb 2011
Priority: JP 2010-04157026 Feb 2010
Published: US 2011/0211469 A11 Sep 2011
Granted: 15 Oct 2013
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification7 codes

H04L 47/193
At layers above the network layer: at the transport layer, e.g. TCP related
H04L 43/0876
Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters: network utilisation, e.g. volume of…
H04L 43/10
Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks: active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
H04L 47/115
Identifying congestion: using a dedicated packet