SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR EFFICIENT USE OF NETWORK BANDWIDTH BASED ON USER PROFILES AND OTHER DATA

• US 20150215816A1
• Filed: 08/14/2013
• Published: 07/30/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ohio State Innovation Foundation (Ohio State University)
• Original Assignee: Ohio State Innovation Foundation (Ohio State University)
• Inventors: Tadrous, John, Abou-Elkheir, Ahmed, El Gamal, Hesham, Wanas, Nayer, Youssef, Kareem, Zaid, Hakem
• Granted Patent: US 10,178,580 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0862 with prefetch
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5681 Pre-fetching or pre-delivering data based on network characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25866 Management of end-user data customer care in data networks H04L41/5077
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/262 Content or additional data distribution scheduling, e.g. sending additional data at off-peak times, updating software modules, calculating the carousel transmission frequency, delaying a video stream transmission, generating play-lists scheduling strategies for dispatcher in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/4881; arrangements for scheduling broadcast services or broadcast-related services H04H60/06; flow control in packet networks H04L47/10; establishing a time schedule or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/62
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/41407 embedded in a portable device, e.g. video client on a mobile phone, PDA, laptop constructional details of equipment or arrangements specially adapted for portable computer application G06F1/1626; arrangements specially adapted for mobile receivers in broadcast systems H04H20/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0289 Congestion control load shedding arrangements in network planning H04W16/08; performing reselection for handling the traffic H04W36/22; wireless traffic scheduling H04W72/12

Abstract

A system for optimizing the use of network bandwidth by a mobile device including a mobile application client, which resides on the mobile device, and is connected to a cloud server, wherein the system analyzes user content consumption, provides a prefetching schedule to the mobile device, and the mobile device prefetches content partially in accordance with the schedule. A method of optimizing the use of network bandwidth using the system is also provided.

Claims

1. A system for optimizing the use of network bandwidth by a mobile device comprising a mobile application client, the mobile application client residing on the mobile device and connected to a cloud server via a network, wherein the system analyzes user content consumption by a user of the mobile device, compiles a prefetching schedule of content anticipated to be requested by the user, provides the prefetching schedule to the mobile device, and the mobile device prefetches content partially in accordance with the schedule.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the network comprises a Virtual Private Network (VPN) through which all traffic from/to the mobile device is routed.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the analysis of content consumption comprises analyzing the traffic routed through the VPN to determine the user'"'"'s preference in different content types.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the user'"'"'s preferences in different content types are stored in content log files at the cloud server and/or mobile client.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein a mobility pattern of the user and access to different mobile networks is stored in a log file.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein usage of a battery of the mobile device is profiled and stored in a log file.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein usage of a monthly data plan for the mobile device is stored in a log file.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein log files are used to create a user profile, and the user profile is used to compile the prefetching schedule.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the user profile is used to compile the prefetching schedule through different mobile applications residing on the mobile device.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the pre-fetching schedule is compiled by the cloud server and sent to the mobile client.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the prefetching schedule contains priority for each item and specific conditions under which each item is to be cached.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the prefetching schedule is executed by a dedicated module in the mobile client.

13. The system of claim 2, wherein traffic requests generated by different mobile applications, and routed through the VPN, are intercepted and analyzed to determine if the requested content is available in a local memory of the mobile device.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein, if the requested content is available in the local memory, the corresponding requests is rerouted to the local memory instead of to the cloud server via the network.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein if the requested content is not available in the local memory, the corresponding requests are forwarded to a predefined destination.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the multimedia content is compressed by the cloud server before being forwarded to the mobile device.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein a user interface is available for accessing the cached content independent of the application requesting it.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the user interface is equipped with a recommendation engine for different content categories.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the recommendation engine is optimized to incentivize the user to consume the cached content and minimize the probability of downloading content that will not be consumed.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the user interface provides customized reports to the user about his/her content preferences, usage patterns, utility of the data plan, and savings achieved by the system.

21. The system of claim 17, wherein the user interface provides the user with settings to control certain parameters of the caching functionality.

22. The system of claim 8, wherein a user interface is provided, and wherein the user profile is modified according to the input obtained from the user through the user interface.

23. (canceled)

24. (canceled)

25. A method of optimizing the use of network bandwidth, comprising the steps of:

providing a system for optimizing the use of network bandwidth by a mobile device comprising a mobile application client, the mobile application client residing on the mobile device and connected to a cloud server via a network;

via the system, performing each of analyzing content consumption by a user of the mobile device and compiling a prefetching schedule of content anticipated to be requested by the user;

via the system, providing the prefetching schedule to the mobile device; and

via the mobile device, prefetching content partially in accordance with the schedule.