MITIGATING POTENTIAL VIDEO TRAFFIC INTERFERENCE

• US 20150128201A1
• Filed: 01/05/2015
• Published: 05/07/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Huffman, James, Medina, Douglas, Kaufman, Darren
• Granted Patent: US 9,961,411 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 725/116
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/12 Arrangements for observation, testing or troubleshooting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/226 Characteristics of the server or Internal components of the server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/24 Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. monitoring of server load, available bandwidth, upstream requests monitoring of server performance or load G06F11/34; arrangements for observation, testing or troubleshooting for broadcast or for distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2402 Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/61 Network physical structure; Signal processing H04B takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6112 involving terrestrial transmission, e.g. DVB-T
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6338 directed to network

Abstract

A method includes detecting, at a video head-end of a video distribution network, a signal having an ultra high frequency white space frequency. The method includes determining that a strength of the signal satisfies a threshold signal strength. The method also includes sending an alert from the video head-end to a network management system in response to the strength satisfying the threshold signal strength.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

detecting a signal having an ultra high frequency white space frequency;

determining that a strength of the signal satisfies a threshold signal strength; and

sending an alert from a video head-end to a network management system in response to the strength satisfying the threshold signal strength.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the alert includes data indicating the ultra high frequency white space frequency.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the alert indicates a potential of the signal to interfere with video traffic delivered via the video head-end.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising scanning for signals having one of a plurality of ultra high frequency white space frequencies.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the plurality of ultra high frequency white space frequencies includes a first frequency that is within a frequency range associated with a video content channel, and wherein the video head-end delivers video traffic via the video content channel.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the plurality of ultra high frequency white space frequencies includes a second frequency that is adjacent to the first frequency associated with the video content channel.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the alert identifies the video content channel.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing data indicating that the ultra high frequency white space frequency is populated.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving data from the network management system, the data indicating a corrective measure to mitigate interference with video traffic by the signal.

10. A system comprising:

a processor at a video head-end of a video distribution network; and

a memory accessible to the processor, wherein the memory includes instructions executable by the processor to perform operations including;

detecting a signal having an ultra high frequency white space frequency;

determining that a strength of the signal satisfies a threshold signal strength; and

sending an alert to a network management system in response to the strength satisfying the threshold signal strength.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the signal is detected via a search antenna.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise sending a second alert to the network management system.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the memory includes a management information data store, and wherein the operations further include storing a status of the ultra high frequency white space frequency at the management information data store.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the alert comprises a simple network management protocol alarm.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the threshold signal strength is between 6 decibels isotropic and 10 decibels isotropic.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the signal is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 802.22 wireless regional access network signal.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the threshold signal strength indicates that the signal has a potential to pixilate or freeze digital television video traffic transmitted by a second signal having the ultra high frequency white space frequency.

18. A computer-readable storage device including processor-readable instructions executable by a processor to perform operations comprising:

detecting, at a video head-end of a video distribution network, a signal having an ultra high frequency white space frequency;

determining that a strength of the signal satisfies a threshold signal strength; and

sending an alert from the video head-end to a network management system in response to the strength satisfying the threshold signal strength.

19. The computer-readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise receiving data indicating a corrective measure from a video operations center, and wherein the corrective measure mitigates interference with video traffic by the signal.

20. The computer-readable storage device of claim 19, wherein the corrective measure includes altering a direction of a directional receiving antenna at the video head-end.