DELAY MANAGEMENT FOR DISTRIBUTED COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS

• US 20110122772A1
• Filed: 02/02/2011
• Published: 05/26/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommScope Technologies, LLC (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: ADC Telecommunications Incorporated (TE Connectivity Limited)
• Inventors: Stuart, Steven B.
• Granted Patent: US 8,509,215 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/236
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0682 by delay compensation, e.g. by compensation of propagation delay or variations thereof, by ranging
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/18 Negotiating wireless communication parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/08 Access restriction or access information delivery, e.g. discovery data delivery signalling during connection H04W76/00

Abstract

A method for programming the delay for a node in a communication system is disclosed. The node receives a selected delay value and a signal path delay value indicating a delay for signals communicated to the node. The signal path delay comprises an aggregation of transport delays calculated by each node for segments of the communication system between the node and a host node. The method further calculates an additional delay necessary to meet the selected delay value.

Claims

1. A method for programming the delay for a node in a communication system, the method comprising:

receiving a selected delay value for the node;

receiving a signal path delay value at the node indicating a delay for signals communicated to the node, the signal path delay comprising an aggregation of transport delays calculated by a plurality of nodes for segments of the communication system between the node and a host node; and

calculating an additional delay necessary to meet the selected delay value.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the additional delay comprises subtracting the signal path delay from the selected delay.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the additional delay comprises calculating forward and reverse path delays.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the additional delay comprises subtracting the signal path delay and an intrinsic delay for the node from the selected delay.

5. A program product comprising program instructions, embodied on a storage medium, the program instructions cause at least one programmable processor in a node within a distributed communications network to:

discover a transport delay between the node and at least one adjacent node within the network;

calculate a signal path delay value for the adjacent node based on the transport delay discovered; and

propagate a signal based on the generated signal path delay value to at least one additional level of nodes in the network, if any, until all of the nodes within the network have respective signal path delay values.