Network capacity planning

• US 9,077,631 B2
• Filed: 10/04/2012
• Issued: 07/07/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Neisinger, Chris S., Olson, Brian, Delos Reyes, Emerando M., Chiang, David, Townley, Scott A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Chan, Wing F
• Assistant Examiner(s): MUNDUR, PADMAVATHI V
• Application Number:
  US13/644,838
• Publication Number:
  US 20140101297A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,006 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/149 for prediction of maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5067 Customer-centric QoS measurements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/026 using flow identification
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0852 Delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/087 Jitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS

Abstract

A network device is configured to receive information relating to factors associated with quality of experience issues. The network device is configured to analyze the information. The network device is configured to predict that a quality of experience factor associated with a particular type of communication will exceed a threshold level a future time. The network device is configured to send a message to the device, the device generating a rule or policy; and the rule or policy instructing one or more other network devices to increase a capacity of the network to prevent the quality of experience factor from exceeding the threshold value at the future time.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a memory; and

one or more processors to;

receive information relating to quality of experience issues;

analyze the information;

predict, based on a result of analyzing the information, that a quality of experience factor, associated with a particular type of communication within a particular coverage area of a network, will exceed a threshold level at a future time;

determine historical values for one or more other coverage areas of the network;

determine that the historical values for the one or more other coverage areas do not match values for the particular coverage area associated with the quality of experience factor after predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level at the future time; and

send a message to a device based on predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level at the future time and based on determining that the historical values for the one or more other coverage areas do not match the values for the particular coverage area associated with the quality of experience factor,

the device generating or changing a rule or policy associated with the particular coverage area of the network based on the message, and

the rule or policy instructing one or more other network devices, in the network, to increase a capacity of the particular coverage area of the network to prevent the quality of experience factor from exceeding the threshold level at the future time.

2. The system of claim 1, where the information includes information identifying a particular session between the network and a user device.

3. The system of claim 1, where the information includes information identifying a streaming video communication between the network and a user device.

4. The system of claim 1, where, when predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold value at the future time, the one or more processors are to:

predict an effect that exceeding the threshold level will have on a quality of experience for a user device located in the particular coverage area of the network.

5. The system of claim 1, where, when analyzing the information, the one or more processors are to:

analyze the information by performing linear regression analysis.

6. The system of claim 1, where the information includes:

timestamp information associated with when the information is obtained from the network, and

identifier information for a cell region within the particular coverage area of the network.

7. A method comprising:

receiving, by a network device, information relating to quality of experience issues;

predicting, by the network device and based on the information, that a quality of experience factor, associated with a coverage area, will exceed a threshold level at a future time;

determining, by the network device, one or more historical values for one or more other coverage areas;

determining, by the network device, that the one or more historical values for the one or more other coverage areas do not match one or more values for the particular coverage area associated with the quality of experience factor after predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level at the future time; and

sending, by the network device, a message to a device based on predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level at the future time and based on determining that the one or more historical values for the one or more other coverage areas do not match the one or more values for the particular coverage area associated with the quality of experience factor,

the device generating a notification to prevent the quality of experience issues from occurring after the future time.

8. The method of claim 7, where the information includes:

information regarding an interactive video communication between a user device and the network, and

information regarding average session setup delay time and average session setup failure rate.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

analyzing a first portion of the information associated with quality of experience factors, the quality of experience factors including the quality of experience factor; and

analyzing a second portion of the information associated with non-quality of experience factors,

where predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level at the future time includes;

predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level at the future time based on analyzing the first portion of the information associated with the quality of experience factors and based on analyzing the second portion of the information associated with the non-quality of experience factors.

10. The method of claim 9, where the quality of experience factors are associated with delay, loss, and failure issues of the quality of experience issues.

11. The method of claim 7, where predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level at the future time includes:

predicting, based on the information, that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level at the future time by using linear regression.

12. The method of claim 11,

where the information includes information associated with a conversational voice communication, and

where the method further includes:

receiving additional information associated with communications regarding Internet browsing;

analyzing the additional information; and

predicting, based on analyzing the additional information, that another quality of experience factor associated with Internet browsing will reach the threshold level at a different future time.

13. The method of claim 7, where the notification is to increase a number of cells within the coverage area.

14. The method of claim 7, where the notification is to increase a number of channels within the coverage area.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions, the instructions comprising:

a plurality of instructions, that when executed by one or more processors of one or more network devices, cause the one or more processors to;

receive information relating to quality of experience issues;

analyze the information;

predict, based on a result of analyzing the information, that a quality of experience factor, associated with a particular coverage area of a network, will exceed a threshold level at a future time;

determine one or more historical values for one or more other coverage areas of the network;

determine that the one or more historical values for the one or more other coverage areas do not match one or more values for the particular coverage area associated with the quality of experience factor after predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level at the future time; and

send a message to a device based on predicting that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold value at the future time and based on determining that the one or more historical values for the one or more other coverage areas do not match the one or more values for the particular coverage area associated with the quality of experience factor,

the device generating or changing a rule or policy based on the message, and

the rule or policy instructing one or more other network devices to increase a capacity of the particular coverage area of the network to prevent the quality of experience factor from exceeding the threshold level at the future time.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15,

where the information includes particular information associated with an interactive video, and

where the particular information includes an average session setup delay time, an average session setup failure rate, a packet loss rate, and a jitter rate.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, where one or more instructions, of the plurality of instructions, to send the message to the device include one or more instructions to:

send a message to the device to increase a number of channels within the particular coverage area of the network.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, where sending the message increases a number of cells within the particular coverage area of the network.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, where the instructions further comprise:

one or more instructions, that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to;

receive additional information associated with machine to machine communications within the particular coverage area of the network;

analyze the additional information; and

predict when another quality of experience factor, associated with the machine to machine communications within the particular coverage area of the network, will exceed a different threshold level at a different future time.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, where the one or more instructions to predict include:

one or more instructions, that when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to;

predict, based on the result of analyzing the information, that the quality of experience factor will exceed the threshold level at the future time by using linear regression.