Apparatus and method for determining transmission policies for a plurality of applications of different types

• US 20070180134A1
• Filed: 12/13/2006
• Published: 08/02/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Inventors: Kellerer, Wolfgang, Steinbach, Eckehard, Sgroi, Marco, Khan, Shoaib, Duhovnikov, Svetoslav
• Granted Patent: US 7,668,191 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/230
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/083 for increasing network speed
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5045 Making service definitions prior to deployment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5067 Customer-centric QoS measurements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5087 wherein the managed service relates to voice services management of VoIP services H04M7/0081
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0852 Delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0888 Throughput

Abstract

An apparatus for determining transmission policies for a plurality of transmissions of different types based on a first transmission data associated to a first transmission being of a first transmission type, and on a second transmission data associated to a second transmission being of a second transmission type is described, comprising means for obtaining a first score within a common range, said first score being based on an evaluation of said first transmission data in a first transmission type specific manner, means for obtaining a second score within the common range, said second score being based on an evaluation of said second transmission data in a second transmission type specific manner, and means for determining, based on said obtained first and second score, for said first and second transmission a respective first and second transmission policy each defining one or more transmission parameters such that a sum of a first and second expected score is maximized.

Claims

1. Apparatus for determining transmission policies for a plurality of applications of different types based

on first transmission data associated to a first transmission being of a first application type having associated there with a first transmission type,

on second transmission data associated to a second transmission being of a second application type having associated there with a second transmission type,

comprising:

a first score calculator for obtaining a first score within a common range, common in the sense of being common for all transmissions and transmission types, said first score being based on an evaluation of said first transmission data in a first transmission type specific manner and considering a user perceived quality of the first transmission;

a second score calculator for obtaining a second score within the common range, said second score being based on an evaluation of said second transmission data in a second transmission type specific manner and considering a user perceived quality of the second transmission; and

determiner for determining, based on said obtained scores, for said first and second transmission, a respective first and second transmission policy, each defining one or more transmission parameters such that a sum of a first expected score and a second expected score is maximized.

2. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said first and second score calculator comprise a deriver for deriving said first or second score from one or more actual or expected first or second transmission properties.

3. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said first and second score calculator comprise a receiver for receiving said first or second score from a unit the first or second transmission data has been transmitted to.

4. Apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said deriver is operative to use a signal to noise ratio, a packet error probability or data rate as first or second transmission property.

5. Apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said deriver is operative to derive said first or second score from a first or second transmission property based on a predefined look-up table or predefined algorithm.

6. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said determiner is operative to determine said first and second transmission policy by defining a source coding type as a first or second transmission parameter.

7. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said determiner is operative to determine said first and second transmission policy by defining a channel coding type as a first or second transmission parameter.

8. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said determiner is operative to determine said first and second transmission policy by defining a modulation scheme type as first or second transmission parameter.

9. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said determiner is operative to determine said first or second transmission policy based on a following function:

$\mathrm{Maximize}<br><br>\underset{i\in <br><br>U}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br>\underset{j\in <br><br>T_u}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br>u_{\mathrm{ij}}<br><br>E<br><br>\left[{\mathrm{MOS}}_{\mathrm{ij}}\right]+\underset{i\in <br><br>V}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br>\underset{j\in <br><br>T_v}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br>v_{\mathrm{ij}}<br><br>E<br><br>\left[{\mathrm{MOS}}_{\mathrm{ij}}\right]$

wherein E[MOS_ij] is said respective expected score, wherein u_ij, is a decision variable of a first decision variable type each representing a possible first transmission policy, and wherein v_ij, is a decision variable of a second decision variable type each representing a possible second transmission policy.

10. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said determiner is operative to weight said first expected score with a first scaling coefficient and said second expected score with a second scaling coefficient when maximizing the sum of the respective expected scores, wherein said first scaling coefficient is based on a history of said first score and said second scaling coefficient is based on a history of said second score, and wherein the first and second scaling coefficient are the higher, the lower a value derived from the respective history is.

11. Apparatus according to claim 10, wherein said scaling coefficient is calculated by the following formula:

$\begin{array}{cc}{\mathrm{\lambda <br><br>}}_{\mathrm{kj}}=\frac{{\mathrm{MaxMos}}_j}{\underset{i=1}{\overset{j-1}{\sum <br><br>}}<br><br>{\mathrm{MOS}}_{\mathrm{ki}}},k=1<br><br>\text{\hspace{1em}<br><br>}<br><br>\mathrm{\dots <br><br>}<br><br>\text{\hspace{1em}<br><br>}<br><br>K& \left(10\right)\end{array}$

wherein MaxMOS_j is derived by the following equation;

${\mathrm{MaxMOS}}_j=\frac{1}{j-1}<br><br>\max <br><br>\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{j-1}{\sum <br><br>}}<br><br>{\mathrm{MOS}}_{1<br><br>\text{\hspace{1em}<br><br>}<br><br>i};<br><br>\mathrm{\dots <br><br>}<br><br>\text{\hspace{1em}<br><br>};<br><br>\underset{i=1}{\overset{j-1}{\sum <br><br>}}<br><br>{\mathrm{MOS}}_{k<br><br>\text{\hspace{1em}<br><br>}<br><br>i};<br><br>\mathrm{\dots <br><br>}<br><br>\text{\hspace{1em}<br><br>};<br><br>\underset{i=1}{\overset{j-1}{\sum <br><br>}}<br><br>{\mathrm{MOS}}_{K<br><br>\text{\hspace{1em}<br><br>}<br><br>i}\right)$

and wherein λ

_kj is said scaling coefficient for a respective transmission k in a rate allocation step j, wherein k is a positive integer k=1 . . . K, wherein K is the number of transmissions being a positive integer larger than 1, and MOS_ki are the respective scores of the preceding rate allocation steps with i=1 . . . (j−

1) for the respective transmission.

12. Apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the determiner is operative to calculate a user-specific scaling coefficent based on the respective history of a plurality of transmissions associated with a user, and wherein said user-specific scaling coefficent is used to weight the respective scores associated with the user.

13. Apparatus according to claim 10, wherein said determiner is operative to determine said first or second transmission policy based on the following function:

$\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{Maximize}<br><br>\underset{i\in <br><br>U}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br>\underset{j\in <br><br>T_u}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br>{\mathrm{\lambda <br><br>}}_{\mathrm{ui}}<br><br>u_{\mathrm{ij}}<br><br>E<br><br>\left[{\mathrm{MOS}}_{\mathrm{ij}}\right]+\underset{i\in <br><br>V}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br>\underset{j\in <br><br>T_v}{\sum <br><br>}<br><br>{\mathrm{\lambda <br><br>}}_{\mathrm{vi}}<br><br>v_{\mathrm{ij}}<br><br>E<br><br>\left[{\mathrm{MOS}}_{\mathrm{ij}}\right]& \left(4\right)\end{array}$

wherein λ

_ui is said first scaling coefficient for a first transmission, λ

_vi is said second scaling coefficient for a second transmission, wherein E[MOS_ij] is said respective expected score, wherein u_ij, is a decision variable of a first decision variable type each representing a possible first transmission policy, and wherein v_ij, is a decision variable of a second decision variable type each representing a possible second transmission policy.

14. Apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said determiner is operative to weight said first expected score with a first priority coefficient and said second expected score with a second priority coefficient when maximizing the sum of expected scores, wherein said first and second priority coefficient is based on a service level or relative priority compared to other users.

15. Method for determining transmission policies for a plurality of transmissions of different types based

on a first transmission data associated to a first transmission being of a first application type having associated there with a first transmission type,

on a second transmission data associated to a second transmission being of a second application type having associated there with a second transmission type,

comprising the following steps:

obtaining a first score within a common range, common in the sense of being common for all transmissions and transmission types, said first score being based on an evaluation of said first transmission data in a first transmission type specific manner and considering a user perceived quality of the first transmission;

obtaining a second score within the common range, said second score being based on an evaluation of said second transmission data in a second transmission type specific manner and considering a user perceived quality of the second transmission; and

determining, based on said assigned first and second score, for the first and second transmission a respective first and second transmission policy defining one or more transmission parameters such that a sum of a first and second expected score for a consecutive transmission interval is maximized.

16. Computer program having a program code for performing a method for determining transmission policies for a plurality of transmissions of different types based

on a first transmission data associated to a first transmission being of a first application type having associated there with a first transmission type,

on a second transmission data associated to a second transmission being of a second application type having associated there with a second transmission type,

comprising the following steps:

obtaining a first score within a common range, common in the sense of being common for all transmissions and transmission types, said first score being based on an evaluation of said first transmission data in a first transmission type specific manner and considering a user perceived quality of the first transmission;

obtaining a second score within the common range, said second score being based on an evaluation of said second transmission data in a second transmission type specific manner and considering a user perceived quality of the second transmission; and

determining, based on said assigned first and second score, for the first and second transmission a respective first and second transmission policy defining one or more transmission parameters such that a sum of a first and second expected score for a consecutive transmission interval is maximized,

when the program runs on a computer.