Method and entity for packet loss distinction

• US 20030149930A1
• Filed: 01/31/2003
• Published: 08/07/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Rey, Jose Luis, Hakenberg, Rolf, Burmeister, Carsten
• Granted Patent: US 7,036,069 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/776
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0009 by adapting the channel coding H04L1/1812 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0061 Error detection codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0072 Error control for data other than payload data, e.g. control data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1635 Cumulative acknowledgement, i.e. the acknowledgement message applying to all previous messages
• 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: H04L 69/163 In-band adaptation of TCP data exchange; In-band control procedures

Abstract

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for distinguishing between congestion and corruption losses during the transmission of data packets. The packet lost distinction is based on the evaluation of an error detection/correction code of each data packet and by detecting sequence numbers.

Claims

1. A method for distinguishing losses of data packets sent from a transmission source, the sent data packets comprise an error detection code and a sequence number inserted at the transmission source, the method comprises the steps of:

detecting data corruption of a received data packet based on the error detection code of the received data packet,

extracting the sequence number of a received data packet,

detecting missing sequence numbers based on a sequence of extracted sequence numbers,

indicating a data packet loss due to data corruption if a corrupted data packet has been detected, and

indicating a data packet loss due to congestion if a missing data packet has been detected and if data corruption has not been detected for that data packet.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of counting the number of corrupted data packets and the number of data packets lost due to congestion.

3. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of transmitting the detected kind of a data packet loss to the transmission source.

4. A method according to claim 3, further comprising the step of transmitting the counted numbers to the transmission source.

5. A method according to claims 1, further comprising the steps of

determining appropriate measures for increasing the transmission efficiency, and

transmitting the determination result to the transmission source.

6. A method according to claim 5, wherein the determining step determines to reduce the transmission rate if the number of congestion losses exceeds a first predetermined threshold.

7. A method according to claim 5, wherein the determining step determines to increase the error protection for data packets to be transmitted if the number of data packets lost due to data corruption exceeds a second predetermined threshold.

8. A method according to claim 6, wherein the determining step determines to increase the error protection for data packets to be transmitted if the number of data packets lost due to data corruption exceeds a second predetermined threshold.

9. A method according to any of claims 1, wherein the sequence number of each data packet is transmitted with increased error protection.

10. A method according to claim 9, further comprising the steps of assigning one of the following receiving states to each of the sent data packets:

received correctly, received corrupted or lost due to congestion.

11. A method according to any of claims 1, wherein the sequence number is extracted from the payload of each data packet.

12. A method according to any of claims 1, wherein the sequence number of the RTP protocol is extracted.

13. A method according to any of claims 9, wherein the sequence number is extracted from the payload of each data packet.

14. A method according to any of claims 9, wherein the sequence number of the RTP protocol is extracted.

15. A data packet loss distinction entity for distinguishing losses of data packets sent from a transmission source, the data packets sent include an error detection code and a sequence number inserted at the transmission source, comprising:

a bit error check unit for detecting data corruption of a received data packet based on the error detection code of the received data packet,

a packet loss detection unit for extracting a sequence number from the received data packet and for detecting missing sequence numbers in the sequence of extracted sequence numbers, and

a loss distinction unit for indicating a data packet loss due to data corruption based on the detection result of the bit error check unit and for indicating a data packet loss due to congestion based on the detection results of the packet loss detection unit and the bit error check unit.

16. A data packet loss distinction entity according to claim 15, wherein the indications of the loss distinction unit are supplied to an application for initiating appropriate measures for increasing the network stability based on the provided indications from the loss distinction unit.

17. A data packet loss distinction entity according to claim 15, wherein loss statistics are transmitted to the transmission source.

18. A data packet loss distinction entity according to claim 16, wherein loss statistics are transmitted to the transmission source.