SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DYNAMICALLY SWITCHING BETWEEN UNICAST AND MULTICAST DELIVERY OF MEDIA CONTENT IN A WIRELESS NETWORK

• US 20140362694A1
• Filed: 08/25/2014
• Published: 12/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/18/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Rodrigues, Ruchir
• Granted Patent: US 10,374,818 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/230
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1886 with traffic restrictions for efficiency improvement, e.g. involving subnets or subdomains
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/5601 Transfer mode dependent, e.g. ATM
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/5641 Unicast/point-to-point
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/5642 Multicast/broadcast/point-multipoint, e.g. VOD
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0215 based on user or device properties, e.g. MTC-capable devices services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC] H04W4/70; wireless resource selection or allocation plan definition based on terminal or device properties H04W72/51
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/30 Resource management for broadcast services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/40 for selective distribution or broadcast

Abstract

Systems and methods for dynamically switching between unicast and multicast delivery of media content are disclosed. An exemplary method includes a user device 1) accessing, over a wireless network, a unicast stream carrying data representative of a media content program, 2) detecting, during the accessing of the unicast stream, an instruction to switch to a multicast stream carrying data representative of the media content program, and 3) switching, in response to the instruction, from the accessing of the unicast stream to accessing the multicast stream by way of the wireless network. Corresponding systems and methods are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing, by a user device over a wireless network, a unicast stream carrying unicast stream content representative of a media content program;

detecting, by the user device during the accessing of the unicast stream, an instruction to switch to a multicast stream carrying multicast stream content representative of the media content program;

switching, by the user device in response to the instruction, from the accessing of the unicast stream to accessing the multicast stream by way of the wireless network;

temporally aligning, by the user device, the unicast stream content and the multicast stream content across the switching from the accessing of the unicast stream to the accessing of the multicast stream; and

presenting, by the user device, the media content program for experiencing by a user of the user device, wherein the presenting comprises processing the temporally aligned unicast stream content and multicast stream content to effectuate a seamless presentation of the media content program across the switching from the accessing of the unicast stream to the accessing of the multicast stream.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the unicast stream and the multicast stream are transported over the wireless network on different radio frequencies.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the unicast stream is transported on a first designated portion of a frequency band spectrum, the first designated portion allocated for unicast streaming of media content; and

the multicast stream is transported on a second designated portion of the frequency band spectrum, the second designated portion allocated for multicast streaming of media content.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the unicast stream is transported on a first frequency band spectrum of the wireless network; and

the multicast stream is transported on a second frequency band spectrum of the wireless network.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

buffering, by the user device, the unicast stream content;

wherein the temporally aligning of the unicast stream content and the multicast stream content across the switching from the accessing of the unicast stream to the accessing of the multicast stream comprises temporally aligning the buffered unicast stream content with the multicast stream content.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the temporally aligning of the unicast stream content and the multicast stream content across the switching from the accessing of the unicast stream to the accessing of the multicast stream comprises temporally aligning frames of the unicast stream content with temporally overlapping frames of the multicast stream content.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the processing of the temporally aligned unicast stream content and multicast stream content comprises detecting and ignoring duplicative frames included in the temporally aligned frames of the unicast stream content and the temporally overlapping frames of the multicast stream content.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the temporally aligning of the unicast stream content and the multicast stream content across the switching from the accessing of the unicast stream to the accessing of the multicast stream comprises using sequence numbers of frames included in the unicast stream content and the multicast stream content to temporally align the unicast stream content and the multicast stream content.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting, by the user device during the accessing of the multicast stream, an additional instruction to switch to a new unicast stream carrying data representative of the media content program; and

switching, by the user device in response to the additional instruction, from the accessing of the multicast stream to accessing the new unicast stream by way of the wireless network.

10. The method of claim 1, embodied as computer-executable instructions on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium.

11. A method comprising:

accessing, by a user device over a wireless network, a multicast stream carrying multicast stream content representative of a media content program;

detecting, by the user device during the accessing of the multicast stream, an instruction to switch to a unicast stream carrying unicast stream content representative of the media content program;

switching, by the user device in response to the instruction, from the accessing of the multicast stream to accessing the unicast stream by way of the wireless network;

temporally aligning, by the user device, the multicast stream content and the unicast stream content across the switching from the accessing of the multicast stream to the accessing of the unicast stream; and

presenting, by the user device, the media content program for experiencing by a user of the user device, wherein the presenting comprises processing the temporally aligned multicast stream content and unicast stream content to effectuate a seamless presentation of the media content program across the switching from the accessing of the multicast stream to the accessing of the unicast stream.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the multicast stream and the unicast stream are transported over the wireless network on different radio frequencies.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein:

the multicast stream is transported on a first designated portion of a frequency band spectrum, the first designated portion allocated for multicast streaming of media content; and

the unicast stream is transported on a second designated portion of the frequency band spectrum, the second designated portion allocated for unicast streaming of media content.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein:

the multicast stream is transported on a first frequency band spectrum of the wireless network; and

the unicast stream is transported on a second frequency band spectrum of the wireless network.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

buffering, by the user device, the multicast stream content;

wherein the temporally aligning of the multicast stream content and the unicast stream content across the switching from the accessing of the multicast stream to the accessing of the unicast stream comprises temporally aligning the buffered multicast stream content with the unicast stream content.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the temporally aligning of the multicast stream content and the unicast stream content across the switching from the accessing of the multicast stream to the accessing of the unicast stream comprises temporally aligning frames of the multicast stream content with temporally overlapping frames of the unicast stream content.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the processing of the temporally aligned multicast stream content and unicast stream content comprises detecting and ignoring duplicative frames included in the temporally aligned frames of the multicast stream content and the temporally overlapping frames of the unicast stream content.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein the temporally aligning of the multicast stream content and the unicast stream content across the switching from the accessing of the multicast stream to the accessing of the unicast stream comprises using sequence numbers of frames included in the multicast stream content and the unicast stream content to temporally align the multicast stream content and the unicast stream content.

19. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

detecting, by the user device during the accessing of the unicast stream, an additional instruction to switch to a new multicast stream carrying data representative of the media content program; and

switching, by the user device in response to the additional instruction, from the accessing of the unicast stream to accessing the new multicast stream by way of the wireless network.

20. The method of claim 11, embodied as computer-executable instructions on at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium.

21. A physical computing device comprising:

a communication facility that accesses, by way of a wireless network, a unicast stream carrying unicast stream content representative of a media content program;

a media access management facility communicatively coupled to the communication facility and that

detects, during the accessing of the unicast stream, an instruction to switch to a multicast stream carrying multicast stream content representative of the media content program,

directs, in response to the instruction, the communication facility to switch from the accessing of the unicast stream to accessing the multicast stream by way of the wireless network,

temporally aligns the unicast stream content and the multicast stream content across the switching from the accessing of the unicast stream to the accessing of the multicast stream,

detects, during the accessing of the multicast stream, an additional instruction to switch to a new unicast stream carrying new unicast stream content representative of the media content program,

directs, in response to the additional instruction, the communication facility to switch from the accessing of the multicast stream to accessing the new unicast stream by way of the wireless network, and

temporally aligns the multicast stream content and the new unicast stream content across the switching from the accessing of the multicast stream to the accessing of the new unicast stream; and

a media processing facility communicatively coupled to at least one of the communication facility and the media access management facility and that presents the media content program for experiencing by a user of the physical computing device, wherein the media processing facility presents the media content program by

processing the temporally aligned unicast stream content and multicast stream content to effectuate a seamless presentation of the media content program across the switching from the accessing of the unicast stream to the accessing of the multicast stream, and

processing the temporally aligned multicast stream content and new unicast stream content to effectuate a seamless presentation of the media content program across the switching from the accessing of the multicast stream to the accessing of the new unicast stream.