Controlling Transmission of Data

• US 20150055465A1
• Filed: 10/02/2014
• Published: 02/26/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rdbro, Christoffer Asgaard, Chen, Mingyu, Andersen, Soren Vang
• Granted Patent: US 9,680,754 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/230.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/18 End to end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/225 Determination of shaping rate, e.g. using a moving window
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2475 for supporting traffic characterised by the type of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/25 with rate being modified by the source upon detecting a change of network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/30 in combination with information about buffer occupancy at either end or at transit nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• 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 28/0252 per individual bearer or channel dynamic wireless traffic scheduling H04W72/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0284 detecting congestion or overload during communication monitoring arrangements H04L43/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/10 Flow control between communication endpoints
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]

Abstract

In an embodiment, a method of controlling transmission of data from a wireless device to a receiver connected via a communication channel includes an application executing on the wireless device providing an estimate of end-to-end bandwidth of the communication channel; supplying to the application from wireless access circuitry in the wireless device at least on communication-related parameter and modifying in the application the estimate of end-to-end bandwidth using the at least one communication-related parameter.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable storage memories comprising instructions of an application for controlling transmission of data over a communication channel in a wireless device, the instructions executable by one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

providing an estimate of end-to-end bandwidth of the communication channel by at least;

receiving, at the application, from a media access control layer of a protocol stack in the wireless device, at least one communication-related parameter; and

modifying, in the application, the estimate of end-to-end bandwidth using the at least one communication-related parameter.

2. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 1, wherein the at least one communication related parameter comprises an indication of a quantity of data in a buffer of the media access control layer.

3. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 2, wherein the indication comprises at least one of an indication in time or bits.

4. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 1, wherein the at least one communication-related parameter comprises a congestion indicator parameter.

5. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 1, wherein the at least one communication-related parameter comprises a wireless signal quality parameter determined by wireless access circuitry.

6. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 1, wherein the at least one communication-related parameter comprises a recent sending rate and wherein estimating the end-to-end bandwidth of the communication channel comprises setting the estimated end-to-end bandwidth equal to the recent sending rate.

7. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 1, wherein modifying the estimate of the end-to-end bandwidth comprises using an aggregate of a plurality of different communication-related parameters.

8. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 7, wherein the aggregate is smoothed over time, and wherein the smoothed aggregate is used in modifying the estimate of end-to-end bandwidth.

9. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 8, wherein an update rate of the smoothed aggregate is dependent on a difference between a current smoothed aggregate value and an observed instantaneous value of the aggregate.

10. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 1, further comprising operations of controlling a transmission rate of the data from the wireless device based on the modified estimate of end-to-end bandwidth.

11. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 1, wherein the application is configured to generate the estimate of end-to-end bandwidth at the wireless device.

12. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 1, wherein the application is configured to receive an estimate of end-to-end bandwidth from a remote device.

13. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 1, wherein the at least one communication-related parameter is received at predetermined intervals from the media access control layer.

14. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 1, wherein the at least one communication-related parameter is received at an adaptive rate based on changes in the at least one communication parameter.

15. The computer-readable storage memories of claim 1, wherein the application is one of a Voice over IP (VoIP) application, an Instant Messaging (IM) application, or a conferencing application.

16. A wireless device comprising:

a processor;

a computer-readable medium; and

an application stored on the computer-readable medium that, when executed on the processor, is configured to perform operations for controlling transmission of data from the wireless device to a receiver connected via a communication channel, the operations comprising;

providing an estimate of end-to-end bandwidth of the communication channel by at least;

receiving, at the application from a media access control layer of a protocol stack in the wireless device, at least one communication-related parameter; and

modifying in the application the estimate of end-to-end bandwidth using the at least one communication-related parameter.

17. The wireless device of claim 16, wherein the at least one communication related parameter comprises an indication of a quantity of data in a buffer of the media access control layer.

18. The wireless device of claim 16, further comprising operations of controlling a transmission rate of the data from the wireless device based on the modified estimate of end-to-end bandwidth.

19. A radio access integrated circuit, comprising:

radio frequency processing circuitry to transmit and receive data from an application in a wireless device over a wireless communication channel;

a buffer for queuing the data to be transmitted by the radio frequency processing circuitry over the communication channel; and

monitoring circuitry configured to;

monitor a status of the buffer; and

generate a buffer status indicator parameter effective to enable the application to estimate end-to-end-bandwidth of the communication channel using the generated buffer status indicator.

20. The radio access integrated circuit of claim 19, further comprising logic configured to generate a congestion indicator parameter based on the buffer status indicator parameter.