Facilitating software downloads to internet of things devices via a constrained network

• US 10,362,166 B2
• Filed: 03/01/2017
• Issued: 07/23/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Tran, Lien, Byers, Simon, De Andrade, Carlos Eduardo, Poole, David, Halepovic, Emir, Gopalakrishnan, Vijay, Volinsky, Christopher
• Primary Examiner(s): Shen, Qun
• Application Number:
  US15/446,797
• Publication Number:
  US 20180255175A1
• Time in Patent Office: 874 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/564 Enhancement of application control based on intercepted application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2207/18 wireless networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42178 by downloading data to substation equipment
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/44 for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/00 Connection management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/11 Allocation or use of connection identifiers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/00 Network data management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/245 from a network towards a terminal

Abstract

Software downloads to Internet of things (IoT) devices are facilitated over a constrained network. In one embodiment a method comprises monitoring, by a network device comprising a processor, data determined to have been sent to a device for transmission to the device via a radio access network device of a wireless communication network, and determining, by the network device, a type of traffic associated with the data. The method further includes based on a determination that the data comprises firmware and that the type of traffic is of a traffic priority that is lower than a defined traffic priority, applying, by the network device, a low priority transport protocol to the data, wherein the applying comprises associating protocol information with the data representative of the low priority transport protocol.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising;

intercepting data on a backhaul link directed for transmission to a device via a wireless connection established between the device and a radio access network device of a wireless communication network;

determining a traffic type of traffic associated with the data;

determining a data type of the data;

in response to a determination that the data type comprises firmware and that the traffic type is of a traffic priority that is lower than a defined traffic priority;

preparing the data to be transmitted according to a low priority transport protocol, resulting in first prepared data, wherein the low priority transport protocol controls a rate of the transmission of the first prepared data based on a current amount of bandwidth of the wireless communication network available to the radio access network device that is not being employed for a higher priority transport protocol than the low priority transport protocol, and

forwarding the first prepared data and first protocol information representative of the low priority transport protocol to the radio access network device for the transmission, by the radio access network device, of the first prepared data to the device using the low priority transport protocol; and

in response to a determination that the data type comprises firmware and that the traffic type is of a traffic priority that is not lower than the defined traffic priority;

preparing the data to be transmitted according to a standard priority transport protocol, resulting in second prepared data, wherein the standard priority transport protocol employs a fair sharing protocol for the bandwidth of the wireless communication network, and

forwarding the second prepared data and second protocol information representative of the standard priority transport protocol to the radio access network device for the transmission, by the radio access network device, of the second prepared data to the device using the standard priority transport protocol.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the higher priority transport protocol comprises a standard priority transport protocol.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the first protocol information directs the radio access network device to decrease the rate of the transmission of the first prepared data as the current amount of available bandwidth decreases.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the first protocol information directs the radio access network device to increase the rate of the transmission of the first prepared data as the current amount of available bandwidth increases.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the data is generated by a manufacturer of the device.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise detecting the current amount of bandwidth of the wireless communication network available to the radio access network device that is not being employed for the higher priority transport protocol than the low priority transport protocol.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the determination that the data comprises the firmware and that the type of traffic is of the traffic priority that is lower than the defined traffic priority is based on the type of traffic being a type associated with the firmware being sent over-the-air.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the low priority transport protocol is a low extra delay background transport protocol.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the determination that the data comprises firmware is based on at least one of a source IP address, a traffic source domain name, and a proxy auto configuration file.

8. A method, comprising:

monitoring, by a network device comprising a processor, data on a backhaul link directed for transmission to a device via a radio access network device of a wireless communication network;

determining, by the network device, a traffic type of traffic associated with the data;

determining, by the network device, a data type of the data;

in response to a determination that the data type comprises firmware and that the traffic type is of a traffic priority that is lower than a defined traffic priority;

applying, by the network device, a low priority transport protocol to the data, wherein the low priority transport protocol controls a rate of the transmission of the first prepared data based on a current amount of bandwidth of the wireless communication network available to the radio access network device that is not being employed for a higher priority transport protocol than the low priority transport protocol, and wherein the applying comprises associating first protocol information with the data representative of the low priority transport protocol; and

in response to a determination that the data type comprises firmware and that the traffic type is of a traffic priority that is not lower than the defined traffic priority;

applying, by the network device, a standard priority transport protocol to the data, comprising associating second protocol information with the data representative of the standard priority transport protocol, wherein the standard priority transport protocol employs a fair sharing protocol for the bandwidth of the wireless communication network.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the transmission is a first transmission, and wherein the method further comprises:

forwarding, by the network device, the data and the protocol information to the radio access network device for the transmission, by the radio access network device, of the data to the device using the low priority transport protocol.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the higher priority transport protocol comprises a standard priority transport protocol.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the first protocol information directs the radio access network device to decrease the rate of the transmission of the data as the current amount of available data decreases and to increase the rate of the transmission of the data as the current amount of available data increases.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising forwarding, by the network device, the data and the second protocol information to the radio access network device for the transmission, by the radio access network device, of the data to the device using the standard priority transport protocol.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the determination that the data comprises the firmware and that the type of traffic is of the traffic priority that is lower than the defined traffic priority is based on the type of traffic being a type associated with the firmware having been sent over-the-air.

14. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:

receiving first data on a backhaul link directed for transmission to a device using a radio access network device of a wireless communication network;

determining a traffic type associated with the first data;

determining a data type of the first data;

in response to a determination that the data type comprises firmware and that the traffic type is of a traffic priority that is lower than a defined traffic priority;

configuring the first data according to a first transport protocol, resulting in first configured data, wherein the first transport protocol controls a rate of transmission of the data based on a current amount of bandwidth of the wireless communication network available to the radio access network device that is not allocated for transmission, by the radio access network device, of second data using a second transport protocol with higher priority than the first transport protocol, and

directing the radio access network device to transmit the first configured data to the device using the first transport protocol; and

in response to a determination that the data type comprises firmware and that the traffic type is of a traffic priority that is not lower than the defined traffic priority;

configuring the first data according to the second transport protocol, resulting in second configured data, wherein the second transport protocol employs a fair sharing protocol for the bandwidth of the wireless communication network, and

directing the radio access network device to transmit the second configured data to the device using the second transport protocol.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise:

directing the radio access network device to decrease the rate of the transmission of the configured data as the current amount of available bandwidth decreases.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise:

directing the radio access network device to increase the rate of the transmission of the configured data as the current amount of available bandwidth increases.