SECURE DYNAMIC QUALITY OF SERVICE USING PACKETCABLE MULTIMEDIA

• US 20110314086A1
• Filed: 06/21/2010
• Published: 12/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/21/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cox Communications Incorporated (Cox Enterprises Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Cox Communications Incorporated (Cox Enterprises Incorporated)
• Inventors: Finkelstein, Jeff, Coppola, John J., Greenfield, Nicolas Emil
• Granted Patent: US 8,959,218 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/103 in the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/756 adapting media to device capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• 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 21/6118 involving cable transmission, e.g. using a cable modem
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6175 involving transmission via Internet broadcast-related systems characterised by the transmission system being the Internet H04H60/82

Abstract

A secure mechanism for third party hosted services to communicate with networks to allow dynamic quality of service to be provisioned for content of the third parties is disclosed. By authenticating the third party hosted services, the service provider is able to enter into business arrangements to share revenue with the third party content providers based on the premium service. A subscriber issues a request to a third party server. In response to issuing the request to the third party server, a dynamic quality of service request is received from the third party server. The dynamic quality of service request is validated and a session is provisioned between the client and the third party server implementing the requested dynamic quality of service.

Claims

1. A method for securely provisioning Dynamic Quality of Service (DQOS) with an external third party, comprising:

issuing, for a subscriber, a request to a third party server;

in response to issuing the request to the third party server, receiving a dynamic quality of service request from the third party server;

validating the dynamic quality of service request; and

provisioning a session between the client and the third party server implementing the requested dynamic quality of service.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the validating the dynamic quality of service request comprises:

validating the dynamic quality of service request at an edge proxy server;

upon validation by the edge proxy server, sending the dynamic quality of service request to an application manager;

translating the dynamic quality of service request at the application manager to PCMM;

sending the translated dynamic quality of service request to a policy manager; and

validating the translated dynamic quality of service request at the policy manager and determining resources needed to implement the dynamic quality of service request.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the provisioning a session between the client and the third party server implementing the requested dynamic quality of service further comprises:

routing a PCMM gate set to the cable modem termination system;

determining resource availability at the cable modem termination system;

creating a PCMM gate for the session; and

communicating with the cable modem to set up a communication path between the third party server and the client and establishing a service flow with the requested QoS for a session using the communication path.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprises:

determining completion of the session;

tearing down the communication path and the established service flow between the third party server and the client; and

resetting the client to a standard rate cap.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the tearing down the communication path and the established service flow further comprises:

sending a signal from the policy manager to the edge proxy server for the edge proxy server to shut down the connection; and

sending a notification of completion of the session to the third party server.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the determining completion of the session comprises receiving a close session notification from the third party.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the determining completion of the session comprises determining a predetermined period of time allotted to the session has elapsed.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein the determining completion of the session comprises determining a number of allowed bytes for the session has been met.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprises determining the subscriber needs more bandwidth than currently available and moving the subscriber to a different flow to provide more capacity to the subscriber.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the issuing a request to a third party server further comprises:

issuing a request from a client to a cable modem;

sending the request from the cable modem to a cable modem termination system; and

routing the request from the cable modem termination system to the third party server.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving a dynamic quality of service request from the third party server further comprises receiving a dynamic quality of service request according to a first protocol and transforming the dynamic quality of service request according to the first protocol to a second protocol within PCMM.

12. A system for securely provisioning Dynamic Quality of Service (DQOS) with an external third party, comprising:

a cable modem termination system configured to route a request for content to third party server;

an edge proxy server configured to receive a dynamic quality of service request from the third party server in response to issuance of the request to the third party server by the cable modem termination system and to validate the dynamic quality of service request; and

a policy manager for communicating with the cable modem termination system to provision a session with the third party server implementing the requested dynamic quality of service.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the edge proxy server generates a validated dynamic quality of service request.

14. The system of claim 13 further comprising an application manager for receiving the validated dynamic quality of service request and translating the dynamic quality of service request to PCMM.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the proxy server receives the translated dynamic quality of service request, validates the translated dynamic quality of service request, determines resources needed to implement the dynamic quality of service request, and routes a PCMM gate set to the cable modem termination system for establishing a communication path between the third party server and the client and establishing a service flow with the requested QoS for a session using the communication path.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the policy manager determines completion of the session, tears down the communication path and the established service flow between the third party server and the client and resets the client to a standard rate cap.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the policy manager determines completion of the session based on receiving a close session notification from the third party.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the policy manager determines completion of the session based on determining a predetermined period of time allotted to the session has elapsed.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the policy manager determines completion of the session based on determining a number of allowed bytes for the session has been met.

20. The system of claim 12, wherein the policy manager determines the subscriber needs more bandwidth than currently available and moves the subscriber to a different flow to provide more capacity to the subscriber.

21. The system of claim 12, wherein an application manager is disposed between the policy manager and the edge proxy server, the application manager receiving the dynamic quality of service request according to a first protocol from the edge proxy server and transforms the dynamic quality of service request according to the first protocol to a second protocol for use within PCMM.

22. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions for securely provisioning Dynamic Quality of Service (DQOS) with an external third party, the computer-executable instructions, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

issue, for a subscriber, a request to a third party server;

in response to issuing the request to the third party server, receive a dynamic quality of service request from the third party server;

validate the dynamic quality of service request; and

provision a session between the client and the third party server implementing the requested dynamic quality of service.