Quality of Service Adjustments to Improve Network Utilization

• US 20120092442A1
• Filed: 10/13/2011
• Published: 04/19/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/14/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc. (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc. (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Tapia, Pablo, Shah, Mehul
• Granted Patent: US 8,964,544 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/14.11
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1435 volume-based
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/083 for increasing network speed
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5019 Ensuring fulfilment of SLA
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/38 by adapting coding or compression rate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/762 triggered by the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/803 Application aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/43 Billing software details
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/80 Rating or billing plans; Tariff determination aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8016 based on quality of service [QoS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8022 Determining tariff or charge band
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/81 Dynamic pricing, e.g. change of tariff during call
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/50 Telephonic communication in combination with video communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/2227 Quality of service monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/367 Traffic or load control
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/24 Negotiating SLA [Service Level Agreement]; Negotiating QoS [Quality of Service]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup

Abstract

Devices of a telecommunication network described herein are configured to reduce a service level associated with a quality of service offered by the telecommunication network to a user. The devices may reduce the service level responsive to data consumption by the user exceeding a threshold or responsive to data consumption associated with an application or data type. Also, the devices may be configured to increase a video-conversation-specific service level responsive to determining that a client device of the user is establishing a video conversation.

Claims

1. One or more computer storage media comprising computer-executable instructions configured to program one or more computing devices of a telecommunication network to perform operations including:

receiving an indication that a client device of the telecommunication network is consuming data associated with a specific application or with a specific data type; and

in response to receiving the indication, reducing an application-specific or data-type-specific content-quality level associated with a content-quality offered by the telecommunication network when providing the data associated with the application or the data type to the client device.

2. The one or more computer storage media of claim 1, wherein the receiving comprises receiving the indication from an Internet protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) server, the IMS server having determined that the client device is consuming the data associated with the specific application or with the specific data type.

3. The one or more computer storage media of claim 1, wherein the receiving comprises receiving the indication from the client device, the client device having determined that it is consuming the data associated with the specific application or with the specific data type.

4. The one or more computer storage media of claim 1, wherein the receiving comprises receiving the indication from a gateway general packet radio service (GPRS) support node (GGSN) or a Packet Gateway (PGW) of the telecommunication network, the GGSN or PGW having determined that the client device is consuming the data associated with the specific application or with the specific data type.

5. The one or more computer storage media of claim 1, wherein multiple ones of the applications and data types are associated with different content-quality levels.

6. A method comprising:

receiving, by a computing device of the telecommunication network, an indication that a client device of the telecommunication network is establishing a video conversation; and

in response to receiving the indication, increasing, by the computing device, a video-conversation-specific service level associated with a quality of service offered by the telecommunication network when providing data associated with the video conversation.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the receiving comprises receiving the indication from an IMS server, from the client device, or from a GGSN or PGW of the telecommunication network, the IMS server, the client device, or the GGSN or PGW having determined that the client device is establishing the video conversation.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the service level is one of a priority level or a content-quality level.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the video-conversion-specific service level is specified by a traffic class associated with a packet data protocol (PDP) context, by a secondary PDP context, or by a service data flow.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the video-conversion-specific service level is associated with a guaranteed bit rate (GBR) included in a request from the client device.

11. The method of claim 6, further comprising providing the video-conversion-specific service level to one or more other nodes of the telecommunication network for the one or more other nodes to apply the video-conversion-specific service level.

12. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

receiving a second indication that consumption of data by a user of the client device over the telecommunication network has exceeded a threshold; and

in response to receiving the second indication, reducing an additional service level associated with a second quality of service provided by the telecommunication network to the user, the additional service level to be applied for data consumption unrelated to the video conversation.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising resetting the additional service level at an end of a billing cycle.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising performing the receiving of the second indication and the reducing at a time of day associated with a relatively larger amount of network traffic than other times of day.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising performing the receiving of the second indication and the reducing for a plurality of thresholds associated with increasingly larger amounts of data consumption.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

determining that the user'"'"'s consumption of data over the telecommunication network has exceeded a second threshold; and

in response to determining that the user'"'"'s data consumption has exceeded the second threshold, reducing a maximum bit rate at which a device of the user is able to communicate with the telecommunication network.

17. The method of claim 6, wherein the computing device is a policy and charging rules function (PCRF) node of the telecommunication network.

18. The method of claim 6, further comprising offering a user of the client device an opportunity to purchase the increased video-conversation-specific service level or an opportunity to purchase a further increase.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the increasing is performed conditionally based on the user'"'"'s purchase of the offering.

20. A system associated with a telecommunication network, comprising:

one or more processors; and

instructions configured to be executed on the one or more processors to program one or more computing devices of the telecommunication network to perform operations including;

receiving a first indication that a client device of the telecommunication network is establishing a video conversation;

in response to receiving the first indication, increasing a video-conversation-specific service level associated with a first quality of service offered by the telecommunication network when providing data associated with the video conversation;

receiving a second indication that consumption of data by a user of the client device over the telecommunication network has exceeded a threshold; and

in response to receiving the second indication, reducing an additional service level associated with a second quality of service provided by the telecommunication network to the user, the additional service level to be applied for data consumption unrelated to the video conversation.