Stack signaling to application with lack of requested bandwidth

• US 20070263653A1
• Filed: 05/12/2006
• Published: 11/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Huitema, Christian, Wu, Deyun, Kuehnel, Thomas, Hassan, Amer, Frost, D.
• Granted Patent: US 8,189,621 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/437
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 1/12 Analogue/digital converters H03M1/001 – H03M1/10 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 9/00 Parallel/series conversion or vice versa digital stores in which the information is moved stepwise per se G11C19/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/18 Phase-modulated carrier systems, i.e. using phase-shift keying H04L27/32 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2605 Symbol extensions, e.g. Zero Tail, Unique Word [UW]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2607 Cyclic extensions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/34 Amplitude- and phase-modulated carrier systems, e.g. quadrature-amplitude modulated carrier systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/006 Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0064 Rate requirement of the data, e.g. scalable bandwidth, data priority
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/1446 of transmission speed
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/61 for supporting one-way streaming services, e.g. Internet radio
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0268 using specific QoS parameters for wireless networks, e.g. QoS class identifier [QCI] or guaranteed bit rate [GBR] negotiating SLA or negotiating QoS H04W28/24
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/24 Negotiating SLA [Service Level Agreement]; Negotiating QoS [Quality of Service]

Abstract

A system for signaling an application when a requested data rate and Quality of Service cannot be achieved using OFDM wireless data transmission, and the application proceeds by either renegotiating QoS and data rate, or waiting until they requested rate and QoS are met.

Claims

1. A method of initiating a communication at a performance level requested by an application (301), the method comprising the acts of:

a) mapping the requested performance level to a set of communications parameters (405);

b) sending a signal to said application (301) if said communication parameters are not possible.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication is wireless.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication occurs over wires.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the performance level consists of a data rate (302) and a Quality of Service (303).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the communications parameters include the number of subchannels.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the communications parameters include the energy level on said subchannels.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the communications parameters include the power level of transmission.

8. The method of claim 4, further comprising the act of selecting a lower quality of service (415) and repeating act (a) prior to sending a signal in act (b) if said communication parameters are not possible.

9. The method of claim 4, further comprising the act of selecting a lower data rate (404) and repeating acts (a) and (b) prior to sending a signal in act (c) if said communication parameters are not possible.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein the mapping in act (a) minimizes the number of subchannels.

11. A wireless transmission system for transmitting data in response to a request from an application (601) to transmit at a data rate and Quality of Service, the system comprising:

a) a subchannel/energy mapping module (602) to determine a number of subchannels and energy threshold needed to meet the requested data rate and Quality of Service;

b) a noise detection module (604) to detect a level of noise on each available subchannel;

c) a signaling module (603) to signal the application (601) when the requested data rate and Quality of Service are not possible.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the application is a Voice-over-IP client, a streaming multimedia application, an Internet web browser, or an instant messenger client.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the signaling module (603) also signals the subchannel/energy mapping module (602) when the requested data rate and Quality of Service are not possible.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the subchannel/energy mapping module (602) responds to a signal from the signaling module (603) that the requested data rate and Quality of Service are not possible by selecting a higher energy threshold.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the subchannel/energy mapping module (602) also determines the power level for transmission.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the application informs the user if the requested data rate and Quality of Service are not possible.

17. A computer-readable medium having computer-readable signals stored thereon that define instructions that, as a result of being executed by a computer, instruct the computer to perform a method of wireless communication, the method comprising:

a) receiving from an application (301) a request for a data rate (302) and Quality of Service (303);

b) attempting to select a plurality of subchannels below an energy threshold according to the requested data rate and Quality of Service (405-414);

c) signaling the application if there are insufficient subchannels below an energy threshold to achieve the requested data rate and Quality of Service (403).

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the method further comprises selecting an power level for transmission.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the selected power level is the minimum possible power level to successfully transmit at the requested data rate and Quality of Service.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the selection of a plurality of subchannels below an energy threshold is done using feedback from a receiver.