CONTENT DELIVERY

• US 20100111059A1
• Filed: 02/27/2008
• Published: 05/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Inventors: Bappu, Benjamin, Tay, Hui Mj
• Granted Patent: US 9,215,424 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/338
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4331 Caching operations, e.g. of an advertisement for later insertion during playback
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43615 Interfacing a Home Network, e.g. for connecting the client to a plurality of peripherals home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] data switching networks H04L12/2805
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/632 using a connection between clients on a wide area network, e.g. setting up a peer-to-peer communication via Internet for retrieving video segments from the hard-disk of other client devices broadcast-related systems characterised by transmission among terminal devices H04H60/80; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

Wireless routers having an ADSL or cable connection to content data available via the Internet, a wired connection for connecting local clients in a LAN and a wireless controller for connecting to other wireless routers and clients in a wireless local area networks (WLANs). The WLANs often intersect and therefore it is possible to communicate between wireless routers in order to exchange content data via the wireless LAN in addition to the ADSL or cable connection. Further, each wireless routers has a cache data store to cache content data requested by the user, or any other information sent to the wireless router from another wireless router. A central server can schedule transfer of content data between wireless routers by considering information packets stored on the server

Claims

1. A method of delivering content data available from a remote content provider to a first wireless router having a wireless network that intersects the wireless network of at least one other neighbouring wireless router, the method comprising the step of:

transferring the content data via the wireless network of the at least one other wireless router.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the content data is stored on a data store of the first wireless router after transfer from the wireless network of the at least one other wireless router.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the content data is transferred to the first wireless router from a cache data store of the at least one wireless router.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the content data is transferred in response to a request for the content data issued by the first wireless router.

5. A method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of determining whether the requested content data is available on the cache data store of the at least one other wireless router.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein content data is received from at least two different other wireless routers.

7. A method according to claim 1, further comprising scheduling the transfer of the requested content data in accordance with predicted idle times of the wireless router.

8. A method according to a claim 1, wherein the content data is transferred to the first wireless router in response to a match between user preference information stored on the first wireless router and a cache content message sent from the at least one other wireless router.

9. A method according to claim 7, wherein the scheduling step comprises message exchange between the first router and the at least one other router.

10. A method according to claim 1, wherein the scheduling is managed by a central server.

11. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of performing a wireless discovery process to determine the neighbouring wireless networks.

12. A wireless router comprising:

wireless communication means for exchanging data via at least one wireless network;

a data store for caching data to be delivered to a user connected to the wireless router;

controller means for monitoring and controlling the type of data to be stored in said data store.

13. A wireless router according to claim 12, further comprising wired communication means for exchanging data.

14. A wireless router according to claim 12, further comprising means for exchanging data with a content provider via the Internet.

15. A wireless router according to claim 12 wherein the wireless communication means is operable to provide a wireless local area network.

16. A wireless router according to claim 15, wherein the wireless communication means is operable to disable the wireless local area network to listen for other neighbouring wireless local area networks.

17. A wireless router according to claim 12, wherein the wireless communication means is operable to provide more than one wireless local area network.

18. A wireless router according to claim 12, wherein the controller means is operable to access a working memory arranged to store, in use, at least one of user information, router information, cache directory information, neighbourhood network information or a schedule.

19. A wireless router according to claim 12, wherein the controller means is operable to schedule the transfer of cached data between at least two of the wireless networks.

20. Apparatus for scheduling data transfer between a plurality of wireless routers, the apparatus comprising:

means for receiving from each wireless router;

(i) neighbouring network information;

(ii) cache content information;

(iii) content requests;

processing means for determining connection paths between the plurality of wireless routers using the received network information messages; and

scheduling means for scheduling transfer of cache content between wireless routers in response to the received content requests.

21. Apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the receiving means is further arranged to receive idle period information from each wireless router and the scheduling means is arranged to schedule transfer of cache in accordance with the received idle period information.

22. Apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the processing means is arranged to determine indirect paths between the wireless routers and the scheduling means is arranged to pipeline the scheduled content transfers.

23. Apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the receiving means is arranged to receive router status information and the scheduling means operable to determine a preferred path between wireless routers.

24. Apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the receiving means is arranged to receive content from a content provider and the scheduling means is operable to transfer the received content to at least one wireless router.