METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR BANDWIDTH MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES

• US 20090016240A1
• Filed: 07/14/2008
• Published: 01/15/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/12/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ViaSat Incorporated
• Original Assignee: ViaSat Incorporated
• Inventors: Sebastian, William B.
• Granted Patent: US 7,782,794 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/253
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/25 with rate being modified by the source upon detecting a change of network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/283 in response to processing delays, e.g. caused by jitter or round trip time [RTT]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/31 by tagging of packets, e.g. using discard eligibility [DE] bits
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/35 by embedding flow control information in regular packets, e.g. piggybacking

Abstract

The present invention relates to systems, apparatus, and methods of measuring bandwidth of a network connection. The method includes establishing a network connection between a sending terminal and a receiving terminal. The method further includes inserting a flag into a packet header for a packet. The flag is to indicate to the receiving terminal that a bandwidth measurement is in progress. The packet also includes a payload. The method further includes setting the flag in the packets header of the packet to true, and transmitting to the receiving terminal the packet. The method then sums arrival times of the packet and the payload for the packet, and calculates the bandwidth measurement of the network connection by dividing the summed payload value by the summed arrival times value.

Claims

1. A method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection, the method comprising:

establishing the network connection between a sending terminal and a receiving terminal;

inserting a flag into a packet header for at least one packet, wherein the flag is to indicate to the receiving terminal that a bandwidth measurement is in progress, wherein the at least one packet includes a payload;

setting the flag in the packets header of the at least one packet to true;

transmitting to the receiving terminal the at least one packet;

summing arrival times of the at least one packet and the payload for the at least one packet; and

calculating the bandwidth measurement of the network connection by dividing the summed payload value by the summed arrival times value.

2. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 1, further comprising setting the flag in each of the packet headers in a plurality of packets to false.

3. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 2, wherein the setting of the flag to false indicates to the receiving terminal that a bandwidth test is not being initiated.

4. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 3, wherein the setting of the flag to true indicates to the receiving terminal that a bandwidth test is being initiated.

5. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 4, further comprising establishing a time interval threshold.

6. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 5, wherein the time interval threshold is configured to control the setting of the flag.

7. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 6, further comprising transmitting subsequent packets, wherein if the time interval threshold is not exceeded, then setting the flags of the subsequent packets to true.

8. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 7, wherein if the time interval threshold is exceeded, then setting the flags of the subsequent packets to false.

9. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 1, wherein the at least one packet is transmitted according to a maximum send offset value.

10. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 1, wherein the steps recited in claim 1 are repeated for additional packets, and the bandwidth measurements from the at least one packet and the additional packets are averaged together.

11. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 1, wherein the network connection is established using a protocol running on top of user datagram protocol (UDP).

12. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 1, wherein the flag is a 1-bit flag.

13. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 1, wherein, based on a predetermined amount of time, flags of subsequent packets are set to true.

14. The method of measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 1, further comprising generating a report indicating the bandwidth measurement of the network connection.

15. A system for measuring bandwidth of a network connection, the system comprising:

a sending device configured to

insert a transport header flag into a packet,

determine if a time interval since the packet was transmitted is greater than a threshold,

based on the time interval being greater than the threshold,

set the transport header flag to true, and

transmit the packet; and

a receiving device coupled with the sending device, the receiving device configured to

receive the packet,

store the arrival time of the packet,

store the transport header, for each packet with the flag set to true,

accumulate the packets size and inter packet arrival time,

calculate a total bytes divided by a total time, and

generate a bandwidth report.

16. The system for measuring bandwidth of a network connection as recited in claim 15, wherein the sending device is further configured to continue to transmit packets with the transport header flag set to true while measuring the bandwidth.

17. A machine readable medium having sets of instructions stored thereon which, when executed by one or more machines, cause the one or more machine to:

establish the network connection between a sending terminal and a receiving terminal;

insert a flag into a packet header for at least one packet, wherein the flag is to indicate to the receiving terminal that a bandwidth measurement is in progress, wherein the at least one packet includes a payload;

set the flag in the packets header of the at least one packet to true;

transmit to the receiving terminal the at least one packet;

sum arrival times of the at least one packet and the payload for the at least one packet; and

calculate the bandwidth measurement of the network connection by dividing the summed payload value by the summed arrival times value.

18. The machine-readable medium as recited in claim 17, wherein the sets of instructions which, when further executed by the one or more machines, cause the one or more machine to set the flag in each of the packet headers in a plurality of packets to false.

19. The machine-readable medium as recited in claim 18, wherein the setting of the flag to false indicates to the receiving terminal that a bandwidth test is not being initiated.

20. The machine-readable medium as recited in claim 19, wherein the setting of the flag to true indicates to the receiving terminal that a bandwidth test is being initiated.