Prioritizing local and network traffic

• US 8,972,537 B2
• Filed: 08/16/2011
• Issued: 03/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/16/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Comcast Cable Communications LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Comcast Cable Communications LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Inventors: Bastian, Chris, Chernak, Sam, Herscovici, Daniel, Witkowski, Bryan
• Primary Examiner(s): Yohannes, Tesfay
• Application Number:
  US13/210,635
• Publication Number:
  US 20130046863A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,295 Days
• Field of Search: 709/220, 709/226, 709/225, 709/240, 370/390, 370/329, 370/290
• US Class Current: 709/220
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/306 Route determination based on the nature of the carried application
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/74 Address processing for routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/24 Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2408 for supporting different services, e.g. a differentiated services [DiffServ] type of service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2433 Allocation of priorities to traffic types
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2475 for supporting traffic characterised by the type of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2483 involving identification of individual flows

Abstract

According to some aspects as described herein, a user may purchase or otherwise be provided with an accelerated service for selected software applications, devices, and/or ports to experience a high level of communication. The accelerated service may be created, for example, by using a dedicated network data flow such that the user'"'"'s customer premise equipment (CPE) network access device may put priority traffic in a different upstream data flow than the commonly shared flow, which may involve tagging the traffic upstream to the network with a priority indicator such as a flow identifier. Based on similar factors, the user may also control local priority of data received downstream from the network for distribution to one or more local devices.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a computing device associated with a user, an identification of a software application and an identification of a local device communicatively coupled to the computing device, wherein the identification of the software application comprises a first application signature;

determining, by the computing device, whether a received data packet identifies the local device and is associated with the software application;

assigning a user-identified priority indicator to the received data packet responsive to if a second application signature associated with the received data packet corresponds to the first application signature and the received data packet identifies the

local device, wherein the second application signature is obtained from the received data packet by examining a format of the received data packet; and

sending the data packet via a network flow associated with the priority indicator.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises comparing the received data packet with the first application signature.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising sending through the network flow, a request for the first application signature based on the identification of the software application.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a user interface on a display device for receiving the identification of the software application.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the user interface comprises a plurality of software application identifications, and wherein the identification of the software application is one of a plurality of software application identifications.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving the data packet as an Internet Protocol (IP) data packet and sending the data packet as a Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) packet.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the priority indicator comprises a quality of service (QoS) parameter.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the priority indicator comprises a priority parameter.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying the local device by a media access control (MAC) address.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an identification of a port of the computing device;

determining whether the received data packet is received at the port; and

assigning the priority indicator in response to determining that the data packet is received at the port.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an identification of a numerical range of transmission control protocol (TCP) ports; and

determining whether a transmission control protocol port identified by the received data packet is within the numerical range; and

,

assigning the priority indicator in response to determining that the transmission control protocol port identified by the received data packet is within the numerical range.

19. The method of claim 8, wherein the priority parameter comprises at least one of a traffic priority parameter, a maximum concatenated burst parameter, an upstream scheduling service type parameter, a request/transmission policy parameter, a maximum sustained traffic rate (Tmax) parameter, a maximum traffic burst parameter, a minimum reserved traffic rate (Tmin) parameter, an assumed minimum packet size parameter, an unsolicited grant size parameter, a grants per interval parameter, a nominal grant interval parameter, a tolerated grant jitter parameter, a nominal polling interval parameter, and a tolerated poll jitter parameter.

12. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a computing device associated with a user, an identification of a software application, the identification comprising an application signature and an identification of a local device communicatively coupled to the computing device;

assigning, by the computing device, a user-identified priority level to the software application;

determining, by the computing device, whether a received data packet identifies the local device and is associated with the software application based on the application signature based on a second application signature obtained from the received data packet by examining content of one or more layers of the received data packet;

assigning, by the computing device, the user-identified priority level to the received data packet if the data packet identifies the local device and is associated with the software application; and

sending the received data packet in an order relative to other data packets based on the user-identified priority level in response to determining that the received data packet identifies the local device and is associated with the software application.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising receiving the data packet as an Internet Protocol (IP) data packet and sending the data packet as a Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) packet.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising receiving the data packet as a Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) packet and sending the data packet as an Internet Protocol (IP) data packet.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving an identification of a port of the computing device; and

determining whether the received data packet is received at the port; and

,

sending the received data packed in an order relative to other data packets further based on whether the data packet is received at the port.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving an identification of a numerical range of transmission control protocol (TCP) ports; and

determining whether a transmission control protocol port identified by the received data packet is within the numerical range; and

sending the received data packed in an order relative to other data packets further based on whether the transmission control protocol port identified by the data packet is within the numerical range.

17. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a computing device associated with a user and via a user interface, information identifying a first software application and identifying a local device communicatively coupled to the computing device;

assigning, by the computing device, a first user-identified priority to the first software application;

receiving, at the computing device via the user interface, information identifying a second software application and assigning a second user-identified priority to the second software application, wherein the second user-identified priority is different from the first user-identified priority;

receiving a plurality of data packets and determining a software application based on an application signature obtained from each respective data packet through the use of deep-packet inspection techniques and determining a local device associated with each respective data packet;

sending data packets associated with the first software application and the local device as a first network flow having the first user-identified priority; and

sending data packets associated with the second software application as a second network flow having the second user-identified priority, wherein the first network flow is separate from the second network flow.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the first network flow is either a best effort flow or a non-real-time polling service flow, and the second network flow is either an unsolicited grant service flow or a real-time polling service flow.