Method and device for providing services to end user devices

• US 8,824,509 B1
• Filed: 12/20/2011
• Issued: 09/02/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/22/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ARRIS Enterprises LLC (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: ARRIS Solutions, Inc. (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Inventors: Oz, Ran, Strasman, Nery
• Primary Examiner(s): Sheikh, Ayaz
• Assistant Examiner(s): HAMPTON, TARELL A
• Application Number:
  US13/331,476
• Time in Patent Office: 987 Days
• Field of Search: 370/468, 370/477
• US Class Current: 370/477
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1836 with heterogeneous network architecture
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/185 with management of multicast group membership
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal

Abstract

Method and system for providing data, video and voice to a group of end user devices includes receiving end user device group quality of service rules and access network node bandwidth constraints; assigning multicast addresses and unicast addresses to end user devices of the group in response to the access node bandwidth constraints; and providing, in response to the end user device group quality of service rules and requests to receive services from the residential gateways, data, video and voice utilizing the assigned multicast addresses and unicast addresses. Further methods include receiving location information representative of distances between multiple end user devices and access nodes; defining end user bandwidth constraints in response to the location information and in response to access node bandwidth constraints; and providing, in response to the end user bandwidth constraints and to requests to receive services from the end user devices, data, compressed video and voice.

Claims

1. A method for providing data, video and voice to a group of end user devices, the method comprising:

receiving end user device group quality of service rules and access network node bandwidth constraints;

assigning multicast addresses and unicast addresses to end user devices of the group in response to the access node bandwidth constraints, the multicast and unicast addresses being assigned to the end user devices in response to locations of the end user devices;

in response to the end user device group quality of service rules and requests to receive services received from residential gateways, providing data, video and voice utilizing the assigned multicast addresses and unicast addresses; and

compressing a program based on respective locations of recipients of the program, adaptively compressing the program in different compression levels, facilitating providing the program using at least two separate compression levels, one compressed program being more compressed than another version of the program, wherein the more compressed program is provided to a first recipient of the program that is more remote than a second recipient receiving the other version of the program.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising compressing at least one video stream provided to at least one end user device.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising allocating a fixed bandwidth to time sensitive traffic, and allocating remaining bandwidth to data and video.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein providing data, video and voice comprises providing targeted advertisements to those of the end user devices that are associated with unicast addresses.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising compressing video streams in response to a number of the end-user devices that request viewing of the video streams.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising compressing video streams in response to video quality of service levels associated with multiple ones of the end user devices that receive the video streams.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising assigning the multicast and unicast addresses in response to end user device statistics.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising compressing one video stream provided to a first one of the end user devices by a higher compression ratio than another video stream provided to that first one of the end user devices.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein providing data, video and voice comprises enforcing quality of service rules by selectively compressing video streams.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the end user devices is a residential access gateway.

11. A method for providing data, video and voice to a group of end user devices, the method comprising:

receiving location information representative of distances between multiple end user devices and access nodes;

defining end user bandwidth constraints in response to the location information and in response to access node bandwidth constraints;

assigning multicast addresses and unicast addresses to end user devices of the group in response to the access node bandwidth constraints, the multicast and unicast addresses being assigned to the end user devices in response to locations of the end user devices;

in response to the end user bandwidth constraints and requests to receive services from the end user devices, providing data, compressed video and voice using the assigned multicast and unicast addresses; and

compressing a program based on respective locations of recipients of the program, adaptively compressing the program in different compression levels, facilitating providing the program using at least two separate compression levels, one compressed program being more compressed than another version of the program, wherein the more compressed program is provided to a first recipient of the program that is more remote than a second recipient receiving the other version of the program.

12. The method according to claim 11, further comprising assigning multicast and unicast addresses to streams that convey the voice, data and compressed videos.

13. The method according to claim 11, further comprising receiving end user device group quality of service rules, and wherein providing the data, compressed video and voice is further responsive to the end user device group quality of service rules.

14. A system adapted to receive end user device group quality of service rules and access network node bandwidth constraints, the system comprising:

a video aware unit coupled to a data aware unit; and

a management entity accessible to at least one of the data aware unit and adapted to assign multicast addresses and unicast addresses to a group of end user devices in response to the access node bandwidth constraints, the multicast and unicast addresses being assigned to the group of end user devices in response to locations of the group of end user devices, wherein the data aware unit and the video aware unit are adapted to provide, in response to the quality of service rules for the group of end user devices and to requests to receive services from residential gateways, data, video and voice utilizing the assigned multicast addresses and unicast addresses;

wherein the video aware unit is operable to adaptively compress a program in different compression levels based on respective locations of recipients of the program, thereby providing the program using at least two separate compression levels, one compressed program being more compressed than another version of the program, wherein the more compressed program is provided to a first recipient of the program that is more remote than a second recipient receiving the other version of the program.

15. The system according to claim 14, wherein the video aware unit is adapted to compress at least one video stream provided to at least one of the end user devices.

16. The system according to claim 14, wherein the system is further adapted to allocate a fixed bandwidth to time sensitive traffic, and to allocate remaining bandwidth to data and video.

17. The system according to claim 14, wherein the system is further adapted to provide targeted advertisements to those of the end user devices that receive programs over unicast addresses.

18. The system according to claim 14, wherein the video aware unit is adapted to compress video streams in response to a number of the end-user devices that request to view the video streams.

19. The system according to claim 14, wherein the system is further adapted to compress a program in response to a location of a recipient of the program.