System and method for combining synchronous and asynchronous communications on a communications network

• US 20070274214A1
• Filed: 11/18/2004
• Published: 11/29/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/18/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Arkados Incorporated (Iota Communications, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Arkados Incorporated (Iota Communications, Inc.)
• Inventors: Logvinov, Oleg
• Application Number:
  US10/991,939
• Publication Number:
  US 20070274214A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/235
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 2203/5445 Local network
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 3/54 Systems for transmission via power distribution lines
• 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: H04L 45/00 Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks routing or path finding in wireless networks H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/125 by balancing the load, e.g. traffic engineering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/28 in relation to timing considerations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0005 Time-frequency
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2402 Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64322 IP

Abstract

Management and control of the distribution of multiple, synchronous and asynchronous, simultaneously occurring audio and video data content in a communications network, as well as the bandwidth used for distributing the content on the network, is performed by all of the content source and content rendering devices operating in unison. The devices, by utilizing a method of establishing dedicated communication channels based on available bandwidth, data content, and network link reliability, can perform the distribution of content throughout the network in a manner that will reduce the latency and improve the reliability of the data distribution.

Claims

1. A multi-carrier communications system including a plurality of communications nodes coupled to one another over a communications medium, wherein the medium includes a predetermined number of data carriers and each of the nodes includes a communications event management module,

wherein the management module, for a communication event requiring use of a minimum number of carriers to satisfy a bandwidth requirement corresponding to the event, determines whether:

(i) currently available carriers from the predetermined number of carriers for the medium can satisfy the communications event bandwidth requirement,

(ii) the minimum number of carriers does not exceed the currently available carriers,

(iii) the number of currently available carriers does not exceed the predetermined number of carriers of the medium less the number of carriers of the medium not suitable for communications, and

(iv) the sum of the currently available carriers and the predetermined number of event carriers does not exceed the predetermined number of carriers of the medium less the carriers of the medium not suitable for communications, and

wherein, if each of the conditions (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv) is satisfied, the management module defines at least two communications channels for the system while the communications event is occurring, wherein the first channel includes a plurality of first carriers for completing the communications event as a synchronous communication and the second channel includes at least a second carrier for completing an asynchronous communication.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the communications event includes at least one of a time synchronized fixed bandwidth event and a demand driven variable bandwidth communications event.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the communications medium is a conventional power line network.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the communications event includes streaming multimedia content.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the streaming content is directly mapped onto the first channel.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the streaming content is MPEG over PHY frame.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the carriers of the available carriers selected for the first channel are selected based on information obtained from tone mapping of the medium.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the second channel is for communicating using conventional TCP/IP protocol.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the currently available carriers are selected based on information obtained from forward error correction analysis of carriers of the medium.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the communications event includes streaming data for playback at a plurality of destination nodes in the system, wherein the management module of a first source node of the system includes an equalization module, wherein the equalization module delays transmission of at least one carrier on the first channel to at least a first of the plurality of the destination nodes such that playback of the streaming data at the destination nodes is synchronized.

4. The system of 1, wherein the currently available carriers are selected from the carriers for the medium based on information obtained from channel training of the medium and analysis of carriers transmitted on the medium on a per-carrier basis.

5. The system of 1, wherein the currently available carriers are selected from at least one of historical channel data, real time channel data, known and learned patterns of changes of channel related parameters and anticipated channel behavior.

6. The system of 1, wherein the currently available carriers are selected based on information obtained from analysis of adhoc communications occurring on the medium.

14. A method for multi-carrier communications in a communications system, wherein the system includes a plurality of communications nodes coupled to one another over a communications medium, wherein the medium includes a predetermined number of data carriers and each of the nodes includes a communications event management module, the method comprising:

determining a minimum number of carriers required to satisfy a bandwidth requirement corresponding to the communications event,

completing the communications event if;

(i) currently available carriers from the predetermined number of carriers for the medium can satisfy the communication event bandwidth requirement,

(ii) the predetermined number of event carriers does not exceed the currently available carriers,

(iii) the number of currently available carriers does not exceed the number of carriers of the medium less the number of carriers of the medium not suitable for communications, and

(iv) the sum of the currently available carriers and the predetermined number of event carriers does not exceed the number of carriers of the medium less the number of carriers of the medium not suitable for communications, and

wherein the completing the event includes establishing a first channel having a plurality of first carriers for completing the communications event as a synchronous communication and a second channel having at least a second carrier for completing an asynchronous communication.