Multiple media fail-over to alternate media

• US 7,769,021 B1
• Filed: 07/03/2004
• Issued: 08/03/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/03/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Goldman, Shelly B., Kowalski, Thaddeus Julius, Foladare, Mark Jeffrey, Chen, Yihsiu, Glazer, Samuel
• Primary Examiner(s): Trost, IV; William
• Assistant Examiner(s): MAGLO, EMMANUEL K
• Application Number:
  US10/884,413
• Time in Patent Office: 2,222 Days
• Field of Search: 370/216, 370/220, 370/230, 370/237, 370/395.21, 709/227, 709/223, 710/8, 714/4, 714/11, 725/44, 715/526
• US Class Current: 370/395.21
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/5692 Selection among different networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0668 by dynamic selection of recovery network elements, e.g. replacement by the most appropriate element after failure
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/122 by diverting traffic away from congested entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/062 using different frequency bands for speech and other data

Abstract

The present invention is a system and method for failing over from a current network access medium to an alternative network access medium. A customer premises equipment (CPE) box has ports for connections to a network through several network access media, such as high speed cable connections, DSL connections and dial-up connections. QoS parameters for each of the connections are monitored from a bandwidth manager remote from the CPE box. When it is determined that a fail-over would be beneficial, a message is sent from the bandwidth manager to the CPE box containing a command to fail-over and an identity of the alternate network access media.

Claims

1. A method for providing automatic fail-over service for premises equipment that is accessing a network via a first network access medium, the fail-over service providing fail-over of the access of the premises equipment from the first network access medium to a second network access medium, the method comprising the steps of:

measuring, at a location remote from the premises equipment, a current QoS metric of at least one of the first and second network access media including receiving at the remote location responses to network pings, the network pings being transmitted from the remote location through the network to the premises equipment, the responses being transmitted from the premises equipment through the network to the remote location; and

based on the QoS metric, transmitting a message to the premises equipment to cause the premises equipment to change from accessing the network via the first network access medium to accessing the network via the second network access medium;

wherein the location remote from the subscriber is connected through the network to the premises equipment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the location remote from the subscriber is an application server.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second network access media are selected from a group consisting of a T1 service, a T3 service, a DSL line, an HFC cable network and a standard telephone access line.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the first and second network access media is a plurality of baseband access media carrying a signal multiplexed among them.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of obtaining historical QoS metrics and comparing the current QoS metrics to the historical QoS metrics.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

comparing at least one QoS metric of the first network access medium to a corresponding QoS metric of the second network access medium.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

retrieving from a database an address of the premises equipment on the first network access medium and an address of the premises equipment on the second network access medium; and

sending network pings to the retrieved addresses.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating a record of the message transmitted to the premises equipment for use in a report.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of transmitting a message to change network access media is performed only if the QoS metric of the second network access medium indicates a greater QoS than the corresponding QoS metric of the first network access medium.

10. A bandwidth manager for providing automatic fail-over service providing fail-over of access of premises equipment between first and second network access media connections from the premises equipment to a network;

the bandwidth manager configured to perform the steps of;

measuring a current QoS metric of at least one of the first and second network access media including receiving at the bandwidth manager responses to network pings, the network pings being transmitted by the bandwidth manager through the network to the premises equipment, the responses being transmitted from the premises equipment through the network to the bandwidth manager; and

based on the QoS metric, sending a message to customer premises equipment to cause the customer premises equipment to fail-over from the first network access medium to the second network access medium;

wherein the bandwidth manager is remote from the premises equipment and connected to the premises equipment through the network.

11. The bandwidth manager of claim 10, wherein the bandwidth manager is located in an application server connected to the premises equipment.

12. The bandwidth manager of claim 10, wherein the first and second network access media are selected from a group consisting of a T1 trunk, a T3 trunk, a DSL line, an HFC cable network and a standard telephone access line.

13. The bandwidth manager of claim 10, further comprising the step of obtaining historical QoS metrics and comparing the current QoS metric to the historical QoS metrics.