SIP header reduction

• US 7,817,635 B2
• Filed: 09/01/2006
• Issued: 10/19/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/02/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: Khalil, Mohamed, Akhtar, Haseeb, Jones, Anthony, Brombal, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Sheikh, Ayaz R
• Assistant Examiner(s): HAMPTON, TARELL A
• Application Number:
  US11/991,301
• Publication Number:
  US 20090129388A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,509 Days
• Field of Search: 370/392, 370/389, 709/247, 709/246
• US Class Current: 370/392
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 7/30 Compression speech analysis-synthesis for redundancy reduction G10L19/00; for image communication H04N; Expansion; Suppression of unnecessary data, e.g. redundancy reduction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers

Abstract

A SIP header reduction protocol operating on a communication network to compress the SIP header fields on SIP control messages used to initiate a SIP communication session. The new protocol is implemented on the mobile use equipment (UE) (301) and P-CSCF proxy SIP server (302). The prior SIGCOMP compression dictionary is used to compress those header field parameters defined by the SIGCOMP dictionary. A new 3G Dictionary is implemented with header field parameters for several wireless specific data elements and parameters necessary to access various wireless technologies and services which are missing from the SIP/SDP based SIGCOMP dictionary. Finally, an Encoding Assistant (EA) (310, 355) function is implemented on the UE and P-CSCF that operates a standard encoding and decoding of SIP message header fields to reduce those SIP header fields that are dynamic over time but are essentially static in terms of most user communication. The EA parameters can be updated periodically, while the 3G and SIGCOMP dictionary are static and not updated.

Claims

1. A packet-based communication system comprising:

a first network element that receives a first compressed request message from an originating communication device to initiate a communication session between the originating communication device and a terminating communication device, said first compressed request message including parameter entries from a defined first parameter dictionary and a defined second parameter dictionary, said first and second dictionaries containing compressed parameter data elements substituted for non-compressed data elements; and

said first network element decompresses the first compressed request message to generate a first decompressed request message for transmission to a communication server, said generation of said first decompressed message occurs after the network element decodes a first parameter using the defined first parameter dictionary, a second parameter using the second defined parameter dictionary having a preferred identity parameter and an access network parameter, and a third parameter using an encoding assistant function, and said first network element transmits said first decompressed request message to a proxy server that was used to register said originating communication device on said first network.

2. The packet-based communication system of claim 1, further comprising:

said originating communication device executes an encoding assistant function to generate said first compressed request message.

3. The packet-based communication system of claim 2, further comprising:

said originating device generates the first compressed request message based on the use of a compression algorithm in conjunction with the defined first parameter dictionary and the defined second parameter dictionary.

4. The packet-based communication system of claim 1, further comprising:

said first network element receives a first response message from a proxy server used to initiate the communication session between the originating communication device and a terminating communication device, said first response message compressed by the first network element using the defined first parameter dictionary and the defined second parameter dictionary to generate a first compressed response message, and said first compressed response message being transmitted from the first network element to the originating communication device.

5. The packet-based communication system of claim 4, further comprising:

said first network element executes an encoding assistant function to generate said first compressed response message.

6. The packet-based communication system of claim 4, further comprising:

said first network element utilizes a compression algorithm in conjunction with the defined first parameter dictionary and the defined second parameter dictionary to generate the first compressed response message.

7. The packet-based communication system of claim 4, further comprising:

said first network element compresses the first response message to generate the first compressed response message for transmission to a communication device by encoding a first parameter using the defined first parameter dictionary, encoding a second parameter using the second defined parameter dictionary, and encoding a third parameter using an encoding assistant function.

8. The packet-based communication system of claim 1, wherein the first compressed request message has a compressed session initiation protocol request message.

9. The packet-based communication system of claim 4, wherein the first compressed response message has a compressed session initiation protocol response message.

10. A method for communicating in a multimedia communication protocol on a packet-based communication system, comprising the steps of:

establishing context between a first network element and a mobile node during the session initiation protocol registration process to enable use of the header reduction protocol for the subsequent session initiation protocol messages;

receiving at the first network element a first reduced request message for initiating a multimedia communication session, said first reduced request message having a reduced header field length compared to a non-reduced request message;

expanding the first reduced request message to form a first expanded request message, said expanding performed utilizing an algorithm in conjunction with a defined first parameter dictionary and defined second parameter dictionary having a preferred identity parameter and an access network parameter, and an encoding assistant;

receiving dynamic parameters in said request message that are not reduced; and

transmitting said first expanded request message to a second network element.

11. The method for communicating in a multimedia communication protocol on a packet-based communication system of claim 10, further comprising the step of:

retrieving a reduced data element associated with a contact list containing collective contact data used to setup communication with other users from a third network element based on a non-reduced parameter used by the encoding assistant.

12. The method for communicating in a multimedia communication protocol on a packet-based communication system of claim 10, further comprising the step of:

receiving a first response message at the first network element;

preparing a first reduced response message by using an algorithm in conjunction with a defined first parameter dictionary to reduce a first group of applicable header parameters to a reduced length;

preparing the first reduced response message by using an algorithm in conjunction with a defined second parameter dictionary to reduce a second group of applicable header parameters to a reduced length; and

preparing the first reduced response message using an encoding assistant function to reduce a third group of applicable header parameters to a reduced length; and

transmitting the first reduced response message to a coupled first communication device over a wireless communication link.

13. The method for communicating in a multimedia communication protocol on a packet-based communication system of claim 12, further comprising the steps of:

receiving the first un-reduced request message at the second network element for processing; and

transmitting the first response message from the second network element.

14. The method for communicating in a multimedia communication protocol on a packet-based communication system of claim 10, further comprising the step of:

coupling a communication device to the first network element using a wireless communication link;

preparing a first reduced request message by using an algorithm in conjunction with a defined first parameter dictionary to reduce a first group of applicable header parameters to a first reduced length;

preparing the first reduced request message by using an algorithm in conjunction with a defined second parameter dictionary to reduce a second group of applicable header parameters to a second reduced length;

preparing the first reduced request message using an encoding assistant function to compress a third group of applicable header parameters to a third reduced length; and

transmitting the first reduced request message to the coupled first network element over the wireless communication link.

15. The method for communicating in a multimedia communication protocol on a packet-based communication system of claim 10, wherein the first reduced request message comprises a reduced session initiation protocol request message.

16. A method for communicating on a packet-based communication system, comprising the steps of:

receiving at a first network element a request message establishing context for a message compression protocol to operate on the system;

receiving at the first network element a first response message for initiating a multimedia communication session, said first response message having a non-compressed header field length;

compressing the headers in the first response message to form a first compressed response message, said compression performed utilizing an algorithm in conjunction with a defined first parameter dictionary and defined second parameter dictionary having a preferred identity parameter and an access network parameter, and an encoding assistant;

receiving dynamic parameters in said response message that are not compressed; and

transmitting said first compressed response message to a communication device over a wireless communication link.

17. The method for communicating on a packet-based communication system of claim 16, further comprising the step of:

preparing the first response message by compressing a first group of header parameters using the defined first parameter dictionary to reduce that grouping of parameter header to a compressed length, compressing a second group of header parameters using the defined second parameter dictionary to reduce that group of header size to a compressed length, and compressing a third group of header parameters using the encoding assistant to reduce that group of header size to a compressed length, said compressed length achieved being no more than 25% of the non-compressed length.

18. The method for communicating on a packet-based communication system of claim 16, further comprising the steps of:

receiving at the first network element a first compressed request message for initiating a multimedia communication session;

decompressing the first compressed request message to form a first decompressed request message, said decompression performed utilizing an algorithm in conjunction with a defined first parameter dictionary and defined second parameter dictionary, and an encoding assistant; and

transmitting said first decompressed request message to a second network element.

19. The method for communicating on a packet-based communication system of claim 18, wherein the first compressed request message has a compressed session initiation protocol request message.

20. The method for communicating on a packet-based communication system of claim 16, wherein the first compressed response message has a compressed session initiation protocol response message.

21. A system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication, comprising:

a computer server on a first network operating a header size reduction protocol to compress and decompress packet header sizes, said protocol performing a first operation using a first defined dictionary, a second operation using a second defined dictionary having a preferred identity parameter and an access network parameter, and a third operation using an encoding assistant, each of said operations processing a message used to initiate multimedia communication, with a compression performed on packets routed to a wireless connection and a decompression performed on packets routed over a wire connection; and

a second network server on a second network receiving said decompressed packet for processing and use to initiate a multimedia communication session over said wire connection, and said second computer server transmitting compressed packets for wireless transmission to user equipment also operating an encoding assistant to initiate multimedia communication.

22. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 21, wherein the preferred identity parameter and an access network parameter in the second defined dictionary includes at least one of the following parameters:

a. P-Preferred-Identity; and

b. P-Access-Network-Info.

23. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 21, wherein the second defined dictionary includes at least one of the following parameters:

a. Max-Forwards;

70;

b. Require;

sec-agree, precondition;

c. Supported;

100 rel;

d. Spi;

s;

e. Port;

c=; and

f. Port;

s=.

24. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 21, wherein the second defined dictionary includes at least one of the following Session Description Protocol parameters:

a. Content-Type;

application/SDP;

b. a=des;

qos mandatory, local sendrecv;

c. a=des;

qos none, local sendrecv; and

d. a=inactive.

25. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 21, wherein the encoding assistants on the system operate to perform one or more of the following to compress a packet header:

a. encode an identifier associated with a contact list entry;

b. delete a protocol description component;

c. encode an identity data element based on an exchanged index value; and

d. delete a parameter component.

26. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 21, wherein the encoding assistants on the system operate to perform one or more of the following to decompress a packet header:

a. decode an identifier associated with a contact list entry;

b. create a protocol description component;

c. decode an identity data element based on an exchanged index value; and

d. create a parameter component.

27. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 22, wherein the encoding assistants on the system operate to perform one or more of the following:

a. encode a P-Preferred-Identity header using an established index value to compress a packet header;

b. encode an access network type in the P-Access-Network-Info header to compress a packet header;

c. decode a P-Preferred-Identity header using an established index value to decompress a packet header; and

c. decode an access network type in a P-Access-Network-Info header to decompress a packet header.

28. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 21, wherein the encoding assistants on the system operate to compress a packet by performing one or more of the following:

a. delete an o=line parameter to compress the packet header;

b. delete a s=line parameter to compress the packet header;

c. delete a c=line parameter to compress the packet header; and

d. delete a t=line parameter to compress the packet header.

29. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 27, wherein the encoding assistants on the system operate to decompress a packet by performing one or more of the following:

a. create an o=line parameter to decompress the packet header;

b. create a s=line parameter to decompress the packet header;

c. create a c=line parameter to decompress the packet header; and

d. create a t=line parameter to decompress the packet header.

30. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 21, wherein the encoding assistants on the system operate to compress a packet by performing one or more of the following:

a. delete a b=line parameter to compress the packet header;

b. delete an a=curr;

local none line parameter to compress the packet header;

c. delete an a=curr;

remote none line parameter to compress the packet header;

d. delete an a=fmtp line parameter to compress the packet header; and

e. delete an a=rtpmap;

nn telephone event line to compress the packet header.

31. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 30, wherein the encoding assistants on the system operate to decompress a packet by performing one or more of the following:

a. create a b=line parameter to decompress the packet header;

b. create an a=curr;

local none line parameter to decompress the packet header;

c. create an a=curr;

remote none line parameter to decompress the packet header;

d. create an a=fmtp;

nn line parameter to decompress the packet header; and

e. create an a=rtpmap;

nn telephone event line to decompress the packet header.

32. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 21, wherein the encoding assistants on the system operate to decompress a packet by performing one or more of the following:

a. add a Route header field to decompress a packet;

b. add an Allow header field to decompress a packet;

c. add a Privacy header field to decompress a packet;

d. add at least one element to the From header field to decompress a packet header; and

e. modify elements in a Security-Verify header to decompress a packet header.

33. The system operating to reduce the size of packets used to initiate multimedia communication of claim 21, wherein the encoding assistants on the system operate to compress a packet by performing one or more of the following:

a. delete a To header to compress a packet;

b. delete at least one element from a From header to compress a packet header;

c. modify elements in a Security-Verify header to compress a packet header;

d. delete a Privacy header to compress a packet; and

e. delete an Allow header to compress a packet.