Multi-video-service bandwidth allocation
First Claim
1. A method comprising:
- receiving a subscriber request, at a headend, from a customer premises equipment (CPE) for a service in a video services delivery environment, wherein the video services delivery environment includes a first group of channels, a second group of channels, and at least one overflow channel, the first group of channels being for services in which each of the services do not take up more than half of a bandwidth on a channel in the first group of channels and the second group of channels being for services in which each of the services take up more than half of the bandwidth on a channel in the second group of channels;
identifying, by the headend, from a plurality of channels available for assignment to the service from the subscriber request, two or more candidate channels having a service designation corresponding to the service from the subscriber request, wherein the service designation is indicative of a service or services that each channel can carry, and wherein the two or more candidate channels include at least one dedicated service channel from the first group of channels or from the second group of channels and the at least one overflow channel;
determining, by the headend, availability of each of the two or more candidate channels by identifying which of the two or more candidate channels have sufficient bandwidth for servicing the request;
assigning, by the headend, the subscriber request to an available dedicated service channel when the dedicated service channel is available, wherein the dedicated service channel is associated with a profile indicative of a single video media type that corresponds to the service from the subscriber request, wherein the dedicated service channel is dedicated to deliver a video service for a highest expected bandwidth request in the video services delivery environment;
assigning, by the headend, the subscriber request to an overflow channel when the dedicated service channel is not available, wherein the overflow channel is associated with a profile indicative of multiple video media types; and
communicating, by the headend, the service from the subscriber request to the CPE via the assigned channel.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A channel allocation mechanism for manages bandwidth using a channel profile to assure an available channel for supporting the highest expected bandwidth request by leaving a contiguous segment available to support such requests. Configurations discussed further below define a profile for expected media types, and associate each channel with a profile designating the media types assignable on that channel. Each media type includes a service and a bitrate, thus different formats of the same service (such as SD and HD) are distinguished. Each profile specifies a media type, and each channel is associated with one or more profiles. Further, a mapping of channels to associated profiles includes a reserve designation, indicating that other (unreserved) be fully assigned before assigning the reserved channels. The reserved channels provide a contiguous block of bandwidth, so that large bandwidth requests do not encounter assignment failure from a plurality of sparsely allocated channels.
9 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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receiving a subscriber request, at a headend, from a customer premises equipment (CPE) for a service in a video services delivery environment, wherein the video services delivery environment includes a first group of channels, a second group of channels, and at least one overflow channel, the first group of channels being for services in which each of the services do not take up more than half of a bandwidth on a channel in the first group of channels and the second group of channels being for services in which each of the services take up more than half of the bandwidth on a channel in the second group of channels; identifying, by the headend, from a plurality of channels available for assignment to the service from the subscriber request, two or more candidate channels having a service designation corresponding to the service from the subscriber request, wherein the service designation is indicative of a service or services that each channel can carry, and wherein the two or more candidate channels include at least one dedicated service channel from the first group of channels or from the second group of channels and the at least one overflow channel; determining, by the headend, availability of each of the two or more candidate channels by identifying which of the two or more candidate channels have sufficient bandwidth for servicing the request; assigning, by the headend, the subscriber request to an available dedicated service channel when the dedicated service channel is available, wherein the dedicated service channel is associated with a profile indicative of a single video media type that corresponds to the service from the subscriber request, wherein the dedicated service channel is dedicated to deliver a video service for a highest expected bandwidth request in the video services delivery environment; assigning, by the headend, the subscriber request to an overflow channel when the dedicated service channel is not available, wherein the overflow channel is associated with a profile indicative of multiple video media types; and communicating, by the headend, the service from the subscriber request to the CPE via the assigned channel. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A video services delivery server for providing a plurality of video services in response to subscriber requests, a method of assigning channels for servicing the requests comprising:
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receiving a subscriber request, at a headend, from a customer premises equipment (CPE) for a service in a video services delivery environment, wherein the video services delivery environment includes a first group of channels, a second group of channels, and at least one overflow channel, the first group of channels being for services in which each of the services do not take up more than half of a bandwidth on a channel in the first group of channels and the second group of channels being for services in which each of the services take up more than half of the bandwidth on a channel in the second group of channels; identifying, by the headend, from a plurality of channels available for assignment to the service from the subscriber request, two or more candidate channels having a service designation corresponding to the service from the subscriber request, wherein the service designation is indicative of the video service or services that each channel can carry, and wherein the two or more candidate channels include at least one dedicated service channel from the first group of channels or from the second group of channels and the at least one overflow channel; determining, by the headend, availability of each of the two or more candidate channels by identifying which of the two or more candidate channels have sufficient bandwidth for servicing the request; assigning, by the headend, based on the determined availability of a dedicated service channel from the at least one dedicated service channels, the subscriber request to the available dedicated service channel before assigning the subscriber request to an overflow channel from the at least one overflow channels, wherein the dedicated service channel is dedicated to deliver a video service for a highest expected bandwidth request in the video services delivery environment, wherein each overflow channel is associated with a channel profile of multiple media types; and communicating, by the headend, the service from the subscriber request to the CPE via the assigned channel. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. In a video services delivery environment for providing a plurality of video services in response to subscriber requests, a method of assigning video transmission resources comprising:
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defining, by a headend, a plurality of channels for multimedia transmissions, wherein the plurality of channels includes a first group of channels, a second group of channels, at least one overflow channel, and at least one reserve channel, the first group of channels being for services in which each of the services do not take up more than half of a bandwidth on a channel in the first group of channels and the second group of channels being for services in which each of the services take up more than half of the bandwidth on a channel in the second group of channels, each channel having at least one service designation, the service designation indicative of the services for which the channel is allocated to fulfill; receiving a subscriber request, at the headend, from a customer premises equipment (CPE), the subscriber request indicative of a service and a bandwidth for which transmission resources are requested; identifying, by the headend, from the plurality of channels, at least one dedicated channel from the first group of channels or from the second group of channels having a service designation for only the service indicated by the request, wherein the at least one dedicated channel is dedicated to deliver a video service for a highest expected bandwidth request in the video services delivery environment; identifying, by the headend, from the plurality of channels, the at least one overflow channel having a service designation for multiple services, and the at least one reserve channel having a designation for a reserved service; comparing, by the headend, available bandwidth in the at least one dedicated channel with the bandwidth of the subscriber request to identify availability of the at least one dedicated channel to service the request; assigning, by the headend, the subscriber request to the at least one dedicated channel having a service designation for only the service indicated by the request when one of the dedicated channel is available, assigning the subscriber request to an overflow channel when the at least one dedicated channel is not available, and assigning the subscriber request to the at least one reserve channel when both the at least one dedicated channel and the at least one overflow channel is not available; and communicating, by the headend, the service from the subscriber request to the CPE via the assigned channel. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification