METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ENHANCED PACKET AGGREGATION

• US 20100238932A1
• Filed: 02/02/2010
• Published: 09/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies General IP PTE Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Broadcom Corporation (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kliger, Avraham, Klein, Philippe, Ohana, Yitshak
• Application Number:
  US12/698,260
• Publication Number:
  US 20100238932A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/392
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling

Abstract

Systems and methods for reducing the latency and for increasing throughput for MoCA devices that are connected via a coax network are provided. One method according to the invention includes, in a network having a plurality of network modules, each of the plurality of network modules being connected to a coax backbone, communicating over the coax backbone between the plurality of network modules. The method further includes a requesting the use of aggregated messages. The method further includes aggregations of messages at the Ethernet packet layer and/or at the MAC layer. The resulting messages can be received while making more efficient use of the MoCA network.

Claims

1. A method of aggregating Ethernet frames in a node on a network comprising:

collecting at least one Ethernet frame;

requesting a transmission opportunity;

receiving a permission to transmit a portion of an aggregation frame;

aggregating at least one Ethernet frame into an Ethernet aggregation frame; and

transmitting an Ethernet aggregation frame.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising implementing the aggregating in a Ethernet Convergence Layer.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising implementing the aggregating in a Media Access Control Layer.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the collecting includes collecting Ethernet packets that have the same destination.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving includes receiving the permission for an interval shorter than the entire aggregation request.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the aggregation aggregates the number of Ethernet packets that will fit the received permission.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving includes receiving the permission for several intervals.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the collecting includes collecting Ethernet packets that have the same priority.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the aggregation includes encapsulating the aggregated Ethernet packets into an Ethernet convergence layer frame.

10. A method of aggregating Media Access Control (“

MAC”

) service data units in a node on a Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) network comprising;

collecting at least one MAC service data unit;

requesting a transmission opportunity;

receiving permission to transmit at least a portion of an aggregation frame;

aggregating at least one MAC service data unit into a Media Over Cable aggregation frame; and

transmitting an Ethernet aggregation frame.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the collecting includes collecting MAC service data unit that have the same destination node ID.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the collecting includes collecting MAC service data unit that have the same priority.

13. The method of claim 10 wherein the collecting includes collecting MAC service data unit that have the same source node ID.

14. The method of claim 10 wherein the requesting include request a permission for at least one MAC service data unit.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein the aggregation includes encapsulating the aggregated Ethernet packets into an Ethernet convergence layer frame.

16. The method of claim 10 wherein the requesting includes a list of MSDU in the request.

17. A method of fragmenting aggregation frames in a node on a network comprising:

receiving at least one aggregation request;

generating a permission for an integer number MSDU; and

transmitting the permission to transmit at least a portion of an aggregation frame.