TECHNIQUES FOR WI-FI ACCELERATION IN RESIDENTIAL GATEWAYS

• US 20120163183A1
• Filed: 12/28/2010
• Published: 06/28/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Broadlight, Ltd. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Tal, Doron, Podlyas, Yuri, Benamar, Gil, Levy, Yoav
• Granted Patent: US 8,804,533 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/241
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/12 Setup of transport tunnels

Abstract

A method for acceleration of wireless communication in a residential gateway, the residential gateway enables communication between a plurality of subscriber devices connected in a wireless local area network (WLAN) and a passive optical network (PON). The method comprises pre-configuring a wireless controller to intercept networking functions programmed in a wireless stack of a wireless driver, wherein the wireless controller and the wireless driver are components of a kernel of an operating system executed by a host processor; monitoring system calls initiated by the wireless driver to the kernel; for each monitored system call, checking if a system call is a request for a networking function; and forwarding the system call for a network function to a packet processor.

Claims

1. A method for acceleration of wireless communication in a residential gateway, the residential gateway enables communication between a plurality of subscriber devices connected in a wireless local area network (WLAN) and a passive optical network (PON), comprising:

pre-configuring a wireless controller to intercept networking functions programmed in a wireless stack of a wireless driver, wherein the wireless controller and the wireless driver are components of a kernel of an operating system executed by a host processor;

monitoring system calls initiated by the wireless driver to the kernel;

for each monitored system call, checking if a system call is a request for a networking function; and

forwarding the system call for a network function to a packet processor.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

allowing execution of the system call by the host processor if the system call is not a request for a networking function.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the networking function comprises at least one of bridging of packets and routing of packets received through a wireless network interface card (WNIC), wherein the WNIC is included in the residential gateway.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the WNIC, the wireless stack, and the wireless driver are compatible with any of an IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.1g, and IEEE 802.1n communication standard.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the packet processor processes the networking functions using a plurality of hardware accelerators.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the packet processor sends processed packets to any of an Ethernet MAC adapter, a PON MAC adapter, and a WNIC depending of the final destination of each processed packet.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

mapping each MAC address of a subscriber device to a service set identifier (SSID) when multiple different WLANs are supported by the residential gateway; and

routing an incoming packet to a destination WLAN based on the mapping formation.

8. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for causing one or more processing units to execute the method according to claim 1.

9. A residential gateway connected to a passive optical network (PON) and a plurality of subscriber devices communicating at least through a wireless local area network (WLAN), comprising:

a wireless interface network card (WNIC) for communicating with the plurality of devices over a wireless medium;

a PON medium access control (MAC) adapter for interfacing with the PON;

a packet processor; and

a host processor executing an operating system, wherein a kernel of the operating system hosts a wireless controller and a wireless adapter, the wireless controller is adapted to accelerate wireless communication with the plurality of subscriber devices by;

monitoring system calls initiated by the wireless driver to the kernel;

for each monitored system call, checking if a system call is a request for a networking function;

forwarding the system call for a networking function to the packet processor; and

allowing execution of the system call by the host process if the system call is not a request for a networking function.

10. The residential gateway of claim 9, further comprises:

an Ethernet MAC adapter for interfacing with the plurality of subscriber devices subscriber devices connected in a local area network (LAN).

11. The residential gateway of claim 9, wherein the wireless controller is preconfigured to intercept networking functions programmed in a wireless stack of the wireless driver.

12. The residential gateway of claim 11, wherein the WNIC, the wireless stack, and the wireless driver are compatible with any of an IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.1g, and IEEE 802.1n communication standard.

13. The residential gateway of claim 9, wherein the networking function comprises at least one of bridging of packets and routing of packets received through the WNIC.

14. The residential gateway of claim 13, wherein the packet processor processes the networking function using a plurality of hardware accelerators.

15. The residential gateway of claim 14, wherein the packet processor sends processed packets to any of the Ethernet MAC adapter, the PON MAC adapter, and the WNIC depending of the final destination of each processed packet.

16. The residential gateway of claim 9, wherein the PON is at least a gigabit PON (GPON).