Establishing Network Connections

• US 20130060653A1
• Filed: 09/28/2012
• Published: 03/07/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Sharkey, Jeffrey A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,650,325 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26.3
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/5692 Selection among different networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/141 Setup of application sessions admission control or resource allocation in data switching networks H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/28 Timers or timing mechanisms used in protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/321 Interlayer communication protocols or service data unit [SDU] definitions; Interfaces between layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/18 Selecting a network or a communication service
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup

Abstract

In one implementation, a computer-implemented method includes receiving, at a computing device and from an application installed on the computing device, a request to establish a network connection to transmit and receive data over a network, wherein the request includes information that indicates one or more parameters identified by the application for the requested network connection and data transmission. The method can further include delaying, by the computing device, establishing the requested network connection until i) an available network connection is identified that satisfies the one or more parameters provided as part of the request, or ii) a time period specified for the request has expired. The method can additionally include, in response to identifying an available network that satisfies the one or more parameters before the time period has expired, establishing the requested network connection for the application using the identified available network.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, at a computing device and from an application installed on the computing device, a request to establish a network connection to transmit and receive data over a network, wherein the request includes information that indicates one or more parameters identified by the application for the requested network connection and data transmission;

delaying, by the computing device, establishing the requested network connection until i) an available network connection is identified that satisfies the one or more parameters provided as part of the request, or ii) a time period specified for the request has expired; and

in response to identifying an available network that satisfies the one or more parameters before the time period has expired, establishing the requested network connection for the application using the identified available network.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters identified by the application include a minimum network bandwidth parameter that indicates a minimum network bandwidth for the requested network connection and a maximum network latency parameter that indicates a maximum network latency for the requested network connection.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the available network connection satisfies the minimum network bandwidth parameter when the available network connection has an available bandwidth that is greater than or equal to the minimum network bandwidth and satisfies the maximum network latency parameter when the available network connection has a current latency that is less than or equal to the maximum network latency.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters identified by the application include a total data size parameter that indicates a total size of the data to be transmitted and received for the requested network connection.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the available network connection satisfies the total data size parameter when the available network connection has a minimum bandwidth sufficient to transmit and receive the total size of the data within a threshold period of time.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters identified by the application include an acceptable delay parameter that indicates a period of time within which the requested network connection is permitted to be delayed.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the available network connection satisfies the acceptable delay parameter when the available network connection is identified within the period of time from when the request was received.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

ranking the received request among a group of other requests for network connections from other applications installed on the computing device; and

wherein the requested network connection is established when the received request has at least a threshold ranking among the other requests.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the requests are ranked based on at least a cost of transmitting and receiving data for each request.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the cost of transmitting and receiving each request is based on a total size of data to be transmitted and received for each request and a cost per data unit to transmit and receive data over one or more available networks.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the threshold ranking is determined based on a network connection budget for the computing device that indicates an amount of money that is available for the computing device to spend to transmit and receive data over network connections.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the requests are ranked based on at least an inferred importance of each of the requests.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the inferred importance of each of the requests is determined based on at least a type of data to be transmitted and an indication of whether a user of the computing device is currently interacting with one or more applications that are associated with each of the requests.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to identifying one or more available networks, requesting bids from the one or more available networks;

receiving bids for the one or more available networks, wherein the bids indicate costs for transmitting and receiving the requested data over the one or more available networks;

selecting an available network from the one or more available networks based on at least the received bids; and

establishing the requested network connection with the selected available network.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein each of the one or more available networks from which the bids are requested satisfy the one or more parameters.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more parameters include a quality parameter that indicates a plurality of levels of quality that are permitted to be used for the requested network connection and data transmission.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising:

identifying one or more available networks that are able to transmit and receive the requested data at one or more of the plurality of levels of quality specified by the quality parameter;

selecting one of the identified available networks that is able to transmit and receive the requested data at a greatest level of quality from among the plurality of levels of quality; and

wherein the requested network connection is established using the selected available network.

18. A mobile computing device comprising:

a wireless networking antenna;

a network connection manager that is programmed to receive a request to establish a network connection to transmit and receive data over a network, wherein the request includes information that indicates one or more parameters identified for the requested network connection and data transmission; and

a request manager that is programmed to i) delay establishing the requested network connection until an available network connection is identified that satisfies the one or more parameters provided as part of the request, and ii) in response to identifying an available network that satisfies the one or more parameters and before a time period specified for the request has expired, establish the requested network connection with the identified available network using the wireless networking antenna.

19. The mobile computing device of claim 18, further comprising:

a connection pricing negotiator that is programmed to request and receive bids from the one or more available networks, wherein the bids indicate costs for transmitting and receiving the requested data over the one or more available networks;

a request ranking module that is programmed to rank the received request among a plurality of other requests for network connections based, at least in part, on the bids received by the connection pricing negotiator; and

wherein the network connection manager is further programmed to select one or more requests from among the received request and the plurality of requests based, at least in part, on the ranking generated by the ranking request module.

20. A computer program product embodied in a computer readable storage device including instructions that, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:

receiving, from an application installed on the one or more computing devices, a request to establish a network connection to transmit and receive data over a network, wherein the request includes information that indicates one or more parameters identified by the application for the requested network connection and data transmission;

delaying establishing the requested network connection until i) an available network connection is identified that satisfies the one or more parameters provided as part of the request, or ii) a time period specified for the request has expired; and

in response to identifying an available network that satisfies the one or more parameters before the time period has expired, establishing the requested network connection for the application using the identified available network.