Increasing link capacity via traffic distribution over multiple Wi-Fi access points

• US 8,169,900 B2
• Filed: 03/20/2008
• Issued: 05/01/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Yeh, Danny Lo Tien, Castro, Paul Christesten, Giraud, Frederique Anne
• Primary Examiner(s): Sinkantarakorn, Pao
• Assistant Examiner(s): Zaidi, Iqbal
• Application Number:
  US12/052,319
• Publication Number:
  US 20080165693A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,503 Days
• Field of Search: 370200-253, 370/503, 370462-468, 370401-427, 370/356, 370328-338, 3703101-3102, 370536-545, 709/203, 709223-226
• US Class Current: 370/230
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2856 Access arrangements, e.g. Internet access asynchronous transfer mode networks H04L12/5601; broadband local area networks H04L12/2801; optical access or distribution networks H04Q11/0067; access to open networks H04L12/5691; digital subscriber line end-user equipment and bit-level processing of data on a PSTN-based network H04M11/00; home network gateways H04L12/2834; wireless access networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/788 Autonomous allocation of resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/803 Application aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/821 Prioritising resource allocation or reservation requests

Abstract

A method and system for combining the bandwidth available to a user communications device from multiple access points by switching output requests and corresponding replies to such requests among a plurality of such access points. In the simplest implementation the switching can be on a round-robin basis, but the switching can be enhanced to prioritize and use quality of service requirements associated with each output request, and also to measure congestion at each access point and base switching upon the congestion level. The invention operates by generating subset ISO communication stacks for each available access point, preferably the subset from the IP layer to the data control link, and switching between these stacks.

Claims

1. A method for distributing device communications traffic of one device simultaneously over multiple access points to a network, comprising:

identifying a plurality of access points available to said device to the network;

instantiating a subset of an Open System Interconnection (OSI) communication stack in said one device for each identified access point, wherein said subset includes at least one upper layer with a single set of input/output queues and at least one lower layer with multiple sets of input/output queues;

distributing output requests from said device to said plurality of access points, at least some of the time distributing said output requests to at least two access points simultaneously, so as to make available to said device a total bandwidth that is greater than is available from any one of the respective access points separately;

providing a device hosting a data application configured for the device to generate output communication requests having quality of service requirements;

monitoring a congestion level for each of said access points; and

assigning a respective priority level, from a range of given priority levels, to each of said output communication requests, the step of assigning being based on respective quality of service requirements of the output communication requests.

2. A method as in claim 1, wherein said subset of an OSI communication stack extends from a TCP/UDP level to a data link control.

3. A method as in claim 1, wherein said subset of an OSI communication stack extends from an IP level to a data link control.

4. A method as in claim 1, wherein said subset of an OSI communication stack extends from a network driver to a data link control.

5. A system as in claim 1, wherein said subset of an OSI communication stack extends from a TCP/UDP level to a data link control.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the network used in performing the steps is the Internet.

7. The method of claim 1, including downloading graphic or video files from the Internet.

8. A method for distributing Open System Interconnection (OSI) protocol communications traffic over multiple access points to a network, comprising:

providing a plurality of access points available to a data device to the network, each said access point having a respective separate access point bandwidth;

identifying the plurality of access points available to the data device;

instantiating a subset of an OSI communication stack for each identified access point, wherein said subset extends from an Internet Protocol (IP) level within the OSI communication stack to a data link control within the OSI communication stack;

generating said output communication requests from said data device;

distributing, simultaneously at least some of the time, each of said output communication requests from the data device to said identified plurality of available access points to provide a total bandwidth for said data device output communication requests greater than the separate access point bandwidths;

providing a device hosting a data application configured for the device to generate output communication requests having quality of service requirements;

monitoring a congestion level for each of said identified plurality of access points available to the device; and

assigning a respective priority level, from a range of given priority levels, to each of said output communication requests, the step of assigning being based on respective quality of service requirements of the output communication requests.

9. The method for distributing OSI protocol communications traffic over multiple access points according to claim 8, wherein the step of distributing is based on round-robin sequencing of respective access points to the network.

10. The method for distributing OSI protocol communications traffic over multiple access points according to claim 8, wherein said subset of the OSI communication stack for each identified access point extends from a TCP/UDP level within the OSI communication stack to a data link control within the OSI communication stack.