METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ALLOCATING BROADCAST CARRIER RESOURCES

• US 20110072475A1
• Filed: 10/28/2009
• Published: 03/24/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/18/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: MCKIEL, Frank A. JR.
• Granted Patent: US 9,027,068 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/100
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2385 Channel allocation H04N21/266 takes precedence; Bandwidth allocation H04N21/24 takes precedence ; allocation of channels according to the instantaneous demands of the users in time-division multiplex systems H04J3/1682; admission control, resource allocation in open networks H04L12/5692; arrangements for maintenance or administration in data switching networks involving bandwidth and capacity management H04L41/0896; negotiating bandwidth in wireless networks H04W28/16
• 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 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A system instructs that a first carrier signal that is modulated with a first digital media stream be sent to a first receiver, where the first digital media stream uses a first bandwidth. The system receives a second request from a second receiver to send a second digital media stream, where second digital media stream uses a second bandwidth that is greater than the first bandwidth, and determines that transmitting the second digital media stream will require use of the first bandwidth. The system instructs that a second carrier signal be modulated with the first digital media stream and sent to the first television receiver, and sends to the first television receiver an identifier of the second carrier signal as carrying the first digital media stream. The system also instructs that the first carrier signal be modulated with the second digital media stream and sent to the second television receiver, and sends to the second television receiver an identifier of the first carrier signal as carrying the second digital media stream.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a device, a request from a television receiver for a particular digital media stream;

determining, by the device, that transmitting the particular digital media stream requires use of bandwidth that is occupied in transmitting another digital media stream using a first carrier signal;

sending, by the device and to an edge switching device, a signal to move the other digital media stream to a second carrier signal; and

sending, by the device and to the edge switching device, a signal to transmit the particular digital media stream by modulating the digital media stream using the first carrier signal.

2. The method of claim 1, where determining, by the device, comprises:

determining the bandwidth required for the particular digital media stream;

identifying a group of carrier signals that have available bandwidth, where the group of carrier signals includes the first carrier signal; and

identifying that a total available bandwidth in the group of carrier signals is not less than the bandwidth required for the particular digital media stream.

3. The method of claim 2, where determining, by the device, further comprises:

ranking the group of carrier signals that have available bandwidth; and

selecting the first carrier signal for the particular digital media stream based on the ranking.

4. The method of claim 3, where the ranking is based on:

a number of digital media streams being transmitted by each carrier signal.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising obtaining characteristics of one or more of:

each digital media stream in the group of carrier signals that have available bandwidth, and

each subscriber for each digital media stream in the group of carrier signals that have available bandwidth.

6. The method of claim 5, where the ranking is based on one or more of:

a cost metric based on the characteristics for each digital media stream in the group of carrier signals that have available bandwidth, and

a cost metric based on the characteristics for each subscriber for each digital media stream in the group of carrier signals that have available bandwidth.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending, by the device and to another television receiver associated with the other digital media stream, an identifier of the second carrier signal carrying the other digital media stream; and

sending, by the device and to the television receiver associated with the particular digital media stream, an identifier of the first carrier signal carrying the particular digital media stream.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

sending, via the edge switching device and to the television receiver associated with the other digital media stream, the second carrier signal that is modulated with the other digital media stream; and

sending, via the edge switching device and to the other television receiver associated with the particular digital media stream, the first carrier signal that is modulated with the particular digital media stream.

9. The method of claim 1, where the particular digital media stream is a high-definition (HD) stream, and where the other digital media stream is a standard-definition (SD) stream.

10. The method of claim 1, where the device comprises one or more of:

a switched broadcast manager (SBM), and

a switched video analysis (SVA) server.

11. The method of claim 1, where the determining, by the device, is conducted in real time.

12. A device, comprising:

a memory to store a plurality of instructions; and

a processor to execute instructions in the memory to;

receive a request for a particular digital media stream;

determine that transmitting the particular digital media stream requires use of bandwidth of a particular carrier signal that is occupied in transmitting another digital media stream;

send, to an edge switching device, a signal to remove the other digital media stream from the particular carrier signal; and

send, to the edge switching device, a signal to transmit the particular digital media stream by modulating the digital media stream using the particular carrier signal.

13. The device of claim 12, where the signal to remove the other digital media stream includes instructions to transmit the other digital medial stream using a different carrier signal.

14. The device of claim 12, where the processor is further to:

send, to a television receiver associated with the other digital media stream, an indicator that the other digital media stream has been preempted.

15. The device of claim 12, where the instructions to determine that transmitting the particular digital media stream requires use of bandwidth of the particular carrier signal that is occupied in transmitting another digital media stream include instructions to:

determine the bandwidth required for the particular digital media stream,

identify a group of carrier signals that have available bandwidth, where the group of carrier signals includes the particular carrier signal;

identify that a total available bandwidth in the group of carrier signals is not less than the bandwidth required for the particular digital media stream; and

ranking each carrier signal in the group of carrier signals to identify the particular carrier signal.

16. The device of claim 12, where the device is a switched broadcast manager (SBM).

17. A method, comprising:

receiving a request to transmit a digital media stream to a television receiver, where the digital media stream requires bandwidth of a coarse resource block from one of a plurality of carrier signals;

determining when a coarse resource block is not available;

identifying, when the coarse resource block is not available, multiple available fine resource blocks among the plurality of carrier signals, where the multiple fine resource blocks include a combined bandwidth at least equal to the bandwidth of the coarse resource block;

switching one or more other digital media streams from the one of the plurality of carrier signals to another one of the plurality of carrier signals to create bandwidth of the coarse resource block;

transmitting the requested digital media stream to the television receiver using the coarse resource block.

18. The method of claim 17, where the coarse resource block includes bandwidth sufficient to carry a high-definition (HD) video stream, and where the fine resource block includes bandwidth sufficient to carry a standard-definition (SD) video stream.

19. The method of claim 17, where the plurality of digitally modulated carrier signals each include a quadrature amplitude modulated (QAM) carrier that may be alternately configured to have at least one coarse resource block or at least five fine resource blocks.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

sending, to the television receiver requesting the digital media stream, an identifier of the one of the plurality of digitally modulated carrier signals carrying the requested digital media stream; and

sending, to another television receiver associated with the one or more other digital media streams, an identifier of the other one of the plurality of digitally modulated carrier signal carrying the one or more other digital media streams.

21. In a cable network broadcasting signals to a plurality of receivers, a method for assigning digital media streams to digitally modulated carrier signals comprising the steps of:

receiving a first request from a first receiver to receive a first digital media stream, the first digital media stream having a first bandwidth;

sending to the first receiver a first digitally modulated carrier signal that is modulated with the first digital media stream;

sending to the first receiver an identifier of the first digitally modulated carrier signal;

receiving a second request from a second receiver to receive a second digital media stream, the second digital media stream having a second bandwidth greater than the first bandwidth;

determining that transmitting the second digital media stream requires use of bandwidth used by the first digitally modulated carrier signal that is presently occupied in transmitting the first digital media stream;

sending to the first receiver a second digitally modulated carrier signal that is modulated with the first digital media stream;

sending to the first receiver an identifier of the second digitally modulated carrier signal as carrying the first digital media stream;

sending to the second receiver the first digitally modulated carrier signal that is modulated with the second digital media stream; and

sending to the second receiver an identifier of the first digitally modulated carrier signal as carrying the second digital media stream.

22. The method of claim 21, where the determining that transmitting the second digital media stream requires use of bandwidth of the first digitally modulated carrier signal that is presently occupied in transmitting the first digital media stream comprises:

determining the bandwidth required for the second digital media stream,

identifying a group of digitally modulated carrier signals that have available bandwidth, where the group of digitally modulated carrier signals includes the second digitally modulated carrier signal; and

establish that a total available bandwidth in the group of digitally modulated carrier signals is not less than the bandwidth required for the particular digital media stream.

23. The method of claim 22, where the determining that transmitting the second digital media stream requires use of bandwidth of the first digitally modulated carrier signal that is presently occupied in transmitting the first digital media stream further comprises:

ranking the group of digitally modulated carrier signals that have available bandwidth; and

selecting the second digitally modulated carrier signal based on the ranking.

24. The method of claim 23, where ranking the group of digitally modulated carrier signals that have available bandwidth comprises executing a ranking algorithm applying or more of:

a total number of digital media streams being transmitted by each digitally modulated carrier signal,

a cost metric based on one or more characteristics for each digital media stream in the group of digitally modulated carrier signals that have available bandwidth, or

a cost metric based on one or more characteristics for each subscriber for each digital media stream in the group of digitally modulated carrier signals that have available bandwidth.

25. A system, comprising:

means for instructing that a first carrier signal that is modulated with a first digital media stream be sent to a first television receiver, where the first digital media stream uses a first bandwidth;

means for receiving a second request from a second television receiver to send a second digital media stream, where second digital media stream uses a second bandwidth that is greater than the first bandwidth;

means for determining that transmitting the second digital media stream will require use of the first bandwidth;

means for instructing that a second carrier signal be modulated with the first digital media stream and sent to the first television receiver;

means for sending to the first television receiver an identifier of the second carrier signal as carrying the first digital media stream;

means for instructing that the first carrier signal be modulated with the second digital media stream and sent to the second television receiver; and

means for sending to the second television receiver an identifier of the first carrier signal as carrying the second digital media stream.