Grade of service and fairness policy for bandwidth reservation system

• US 20010033557A1
• Filed: 02/07/2001
• Published: 10/25/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 02/08/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: IPR Licensing Incorporated (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Tantivy Communications Incorporated (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Inventors: Amalfitano, Carlo
• Granted Patent: US 7,933,249 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/335
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/24 Negotiating SLA [Service Level Agreement]; Negotiating QoS [Quality of Service]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/26 Resource reservation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/56 based on priority criteria

Abstract

A scheme for assigning priority levels to users based upon a history of their request for access to the resources. If a user has, over a historical period of time, made fewer demands than a stated amount, that user is given a higher priority than a user who has made greater use of the resources than their stated amount. Thus, users making the heaviest demand on the available resources are allocated fewer resources despite their demand, whereas users that make less demands for the resources are granted more of the resources they request. An additional feature of an access allocation scheme according to the present invention is to reserve at least some resources for the users at the lowest priority levels. Thus, even users being assigned to a lowest priority queue will be granted at least some access once in a while. A third feature in connection with the present invention is to use the time of continuous transfer as a threshold to drop a presently assigned priority. For example, when a user at a particular priority level has made continuous use of resources for a predetermined time, that user is reassigned to the next lowest priority level and its resources are taken away. The user is then required to vie again for access to resources at this lower priority level.

Claims

1. A method of providing multiple grades of wireless service to multiple field users for communication of data between a base station and multiple subscriber units over one or more CDMA communication channels, each grade of service having a corresponding priority level, the method comprising the steps of:

reserving a bandwidth and dividing the bandwidth into a plurality of channels;

maintaining a connection between multiple subscriber units and the base station;

detecting a request by multiple field units to simultaneously transmit data to the base station;

assigning the subchannels for communication between the base station and subscriber units based on a corresponding priority level of requesting field units, the priority level depending upon historical demand by a user making a specific request.

2. A method as described in

claim 1

farther comprising the step of:

reducing a priority level of a field unit for exceeding a predetermined threshold of allowed usage.

3. A method of providing multiple grades of service in a demand access communication system, in which grade of service depends on historical use of available resources and continuity of resource allocation.