NETWORK CAPACITY PLANNING

• US 20140101297A1
• Filed: 10/04/2012
• Published: 04/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: NEISINGER, Chris S., DELOS REYES, Emerando M., CHIANG, David, OLSON, Brian, TOWNLEY, Scott A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,077,631 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/149 for prediction of maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5067 Customer-centric QoS measurements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/026 using flow identification
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0852 Delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/087 Jitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS

Abstract

A network device is configured to receive information relating to factors associated with quality of experience issues. The network device is configured to analyze the information. The network device is configured to predict that a quality of experience factor associated with a particular type of communication will exceed a threshold level a future time. The network device is configured to send a message to the device, the device generating a rule or policy; and the rule or policy instructing one or more other network devices to increase a capacity of the network to prevent the quality of experience factor from exceeding the threshold value at the future time.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a network device to;

receive information relating to factors associated with quality of experience issues;

analyze the information;

predict, based on a result of analyzing the information, that a quality of experience factor, associated with a particular type of communication within a particular coverage area of a network, will exceed a threshold level at a future time; and

send a message to a device, based on predicting that the quality of experience factor within the particular coverage area of the network will exceed the threshold level, at the future time,

the device generating or changing a rule or policy associated with the particular coverage area of the network based on the message,

the rule or policy instructing one or more other network devices, in the network, to increase a capacity of the particular coverage area of the network to prevent the quality of experience factor from exceeding the threshold value at the future time.

2. The system of claim 1, where, when receiving the information, the network device is to:

receive information identifying a particular session between the network and a user device.

3. The system of claim 1, where, when receiving the information, the network device is to:

receive information identifying a streaming video communication between the network and a user device.

4. The system of claim 1, where, when predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold value, the network device is to:

predict the affect of exceeding the threshold level will have on the quality of experience for a user device located in the particular coverage area of the network.

5. The system of claim 4, where, when analyzing the information, the network device is to:

analyze the information by performing linear regression analysis.

6. The system of claim 4, where, when predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level, the network device is to:

compare the analysis of the information with historical information for other coverage areas of the network; and

predict, based on the comparison, that the quality of experience will exceed the threshold level at the future time.

7. The system of claim 1, where, when receiving the information, the network device is to:

receive information regarding timestamp information associated with when the information is obtained from the network; and

receive identifier information for a cell region within the particular coverage area of the network.

8. A method comprising:

receiving, by a network device, information relating to factors associated with quality of experience issues;

analyzing, by the network device, the information;

predicting, by the network device, that a quality of experience factor associated with a particular type of communication will exceed a threshold level at a future time; and

sending, by the network device, a message to a device based on predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level at the future time,

the device generating a notification to the network to prevent issues relating to quality of experience from occurring in the future.

9. The method of claim 8, where receiving the information includes:

receiving information regarding an interactive video communication between a user device and the network; and

receiving information regarding average session setup, delay time, average session setup, and failure rate.

10. The method of claim 8, where analyzing of the information includes:

analyzing information associated with quality of experience factors; and

analyzing information associated with non-quality of experience factors.

11. The method of claim 10, where the information associated with quality of experience factors includes factors associated with delay, loss, and failure issues.

12. The method of claim 8, where analyzing the information includes:

analyzing the information using linear regression.

13. The method of claim 12, where receiving information includes:

receiving information associated with a conversational voice communication, and

where the method further includes;

receiving additional information associated with communications regarding Internet browsing;

analyzing the additional information; and

predicting that another quality of experience factor associated with Internet browsing will reach the threshold level at a different future time.

14. The method of claim 8, where sending the message to the device includes:

sending a notification to increase a number of cells within a particular coverage area of a network.

15. The method of claim 8, where sending the message to the device includes:

sending a notification to increase a number of channels within a particular coverage area of a network.

16. A computer-readable medium comprising:

a plurality of instructions, that when executed by one or more processors of one or more network devices, cause the one or more processors to;

receive information relating to factors associated with quality of experience issues;

analyze the information;

predict, based on a result of analyzing the information, that a quality of experience factor, associated with a particular type of communication, will exceed a threshold level at a future time; and

send a message to a device, based on predicting when the quality of experience factor within a particular coverage area of a network will exceed the threshold value at the future time,

the device generating or changing a rule or policy associated with the particular coverage area of the network based on the message,

the rule or policy instructing one or more other network devices, in the network, to increase a capacity of the particular coverage area of the network to prevent the quality of experience factor from exceeding the threshold value at the future time.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, where one or more instructions, of the plurality of instructions, to receive the information include one or more instructions to:

receive information associated with an interactive video, the information including average session setup delay time, average session setup failure rate, packet loss rate, and jitter rate.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, where one or more instructions, of the plurality of instructions, to send the message to the device include one or more instructions to:

send a message to the device to increase a number of channels within the particular coverage area of the network.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, where one or more instructions, of the plurality of instructions, to send the message to the device include one or more instructions to:

send a message to the device to increase a number of cells within the particular coverage area of the network.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, where the plurality of instructions further cause the one or more processors to:

receive additional information associated with machine to machine communications within the particular coverage area of the network;

analyze the additional information; and

predict when another quality of experience factor, associated with the machine to machine communications within the particular coverage area of the network, will exceed a different threshold level at a different future time.