Method and apparatus to achieve lossless call in view of a temporary reception issue

• US 9,161,272 B2
• Filed: 10/24/2013
• Issued: 10/13/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/24/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Motorola Solutions, Inc.
• Inventors: Ofir, Gabi, Bar-On, David, Cohen, Uri
• Primary Examiner(s): KHIRODHAR, MAHARISHI V
• Application Number:
  US14/061,904
• Publication Number:
  US 20150117397A1
• Time in Patent Office: 719 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1046 Call controllers; Call servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/023 Buffering or recovering information during reselection

Abstract

A lossless call may be established over a wireless radio network by determining, at a target subscriber device during a received call, that one or more identified media items in a stream of media items of the call being received over a first radio channel was not successfully received, and responsively: continuing to receive first subsequent media items of the call and buffering, instead of rendering at the target subscriber device, the first subsequent media items, requesting the identified media items, receiving by the target subscriber device via an established second radio channel, different from the first radio channel, the identified media items, re-ordering the identified media items chronologically with respect to the buffered first subsequent media items to create the re-ordered subsequent media stream, and rendering, by the target subscriber device, the re-ordered subsequent media stream at a first increased relative rate.

Claims

1. A method for achieving a lossless call over a wireless radio network, the method comprising:

receiving, by a target subscriber device during a received call, media items in a stream of media items received over a first radio channel, and rendering the media items at a nominal rendering rate lower than a first increased relative rendering rate;

determining, by a target subscriber device during the received call, that one or more identified media items in the stream of media items of the received call being received over the first radio channel was not successfully received, and responsively;

continuing to receive, by one of an infrastructure controller and the target subscriber device via the first radio channel, first subsequent media items of the received call and buffering, and refraining from rendering at the target subscriber device, the first subsequent media items;

requesting, by the target subscriber device, the identified media items;

one of;

receiving, by the target subscriber device via a second radio channel, different from the first radio channel and established at a time of establishment of the received call or responsive to the determining that the one or more identified media items was not successfully received, the identified media items and re-ordering, by the target subscriber device, the identified media items chronologically with respect to the buffered first subsequent media items to create a re-ordered subsequent media stream; and

receiving, by the target subscriber device via a second radio channel, different from the first radio channel and established at the time of establishment of the received call or responsive to the determining that the one or more identified media items was not successfully received, a re-ordered subsequent media stream including the identified media items chronologically ordered with respect to the buffered first subsequent media items;

rendering, by the target subscriber device, the re-ordered subsequent media stream at the first increased relative rendering rate; and

subsequently receiving, by the target subscriber device via the first radio channel, second subsequent media items of the received call over the first radio channel and rendering, by the target subscriber device, the second subsequent media items at the nominal rendering rate.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the nominal rendering rate is a rendering rate that the stream of media items was intended to be rendered.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the rendering of media items at the first increased relative rendering rate continues until there is no more buffered first subsequent media items to render, after which point the second subsequent media items of the received call received over the first radio channel are rendered at the nominal rendering rate.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the nominal rendering rate which the stream of media items was intended to be rendered is one of pre-configured at the target subscriber device, embedded in the stream of media items, and determined via a rendering value received over the first radio channel.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, prior to rendering the re-ordered subsequent media stream at the first increased relative rendering rate, the target subscriber device determining the first increased relative rendering rate as a function of an amount of first subsequent media items buffered and a maximum increased relative rendering rate.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the maximum increased relative rendering rate is 30% greater than the nominal rendering rate.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first radio channel and the second radio channel are established over different physical channels, and the first radio channel is a broadcast or multicast channel, and the second radio channel is a unicast channel.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first radio channel and the second radio channel are established over different physical channels, and the first radio channel is a first time slot of a first multi-slot time division multiple access, TDMA, radio channel, and the second radio channel is a second time slot of a second multi-slot TDMA radio channel.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first radio channel and the second radio channel are established over different logical channels, and the first radio channel is a long term evolution, LTE, multicast traffic channel, and the second radio channel is an LTE dedicated traffic channel.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the first radio channel and the second radio channel are established over different physical channels, and the first radio channel is a first frequency of a multi-frequency frequency division multiple access, FDMA, system, and the second radio channel is a second frequency of the multi-frequency FDMA system.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of requesting, by the target subscriber device, the identified media items comprises requesting, via a request transmitted over the second radio channel, the identified media items.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of requesting, by the target subscriber device, the identified media items comprises requesting, via a request transmitted over a third radio channel, the identified media items, wherein the third radio channel is a stealing channel formed by stealing portions of the first radio channel.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining, by the target subscriber device during a received call, that one or more identified media items in the stream of media items of the received call being received over a first radio channel was not successfully received further comprises determining that a threshold maximum number of identified media items has not been reached, wherein the threshold maximum number of identified media items equates to between three to five seconds of rendered media when rendered at the nominal rendering rate.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the second radio channel is established at the time of establishment of the received call.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the second radio channel is established responsive to the determining that the one or more identified media items was not successfully received.

16. A target subscriber device for achieving a lossless call, the target subscriber device comprising:

one or more transceivers;

one of a speaker and display;

a data store; and

one or more processors configured to;

receive, via the one or more transceivers during a received call, media items in a stream of media items received over a first radio channel, and render, via the one of the speaker and display, the media items at a nominal rendering rate lower than a first increased relative rendering rate;

determine, during the received call, that one or more identified media items in the stream of media items of the received call being received over the first radio channel via the one or more transceivers was not successfully received, and responsively;

continue to receive, via the first radio channel and the one or more transceivers, first subsequent media items of the received call and buffer via the data store, and refrain from rendering via the one of the speaker and display, the first subsequent media items;

request, via the one or more transceivers, the identified media items;

receive, via the one or more transceivers and a second radio channel, different from the first radio channel and established at a time of the received call or responsive to the determining that the one or more identified media items was not successfully received, the identified media items;

retrieve the buffered first subsequent media items via the data store and re-order the identified media items chronologically with respect to the buffered first subsequent media items to create a re-ordered subsequent media stream; and

render, via the one of the speaker and display, the re-ordered subsequent media stream at the first increased relative rendering rate; and

subsequently receive, via the first radio channel, second subsequent media items of the received call over the first radio channel via the one or more transceivers and render, via the one of the speaker and display, the second subsequent media items at the nominal rendering rate.

17. A method for achieving a lossless call over a wireless radio network, the method comprising:

providing, by an infrastructure controller during a call, media items in a stream of media items via a first radio channel to a first target subscriber device;

receiving, at the infrastructure controller during the call, a missed media items request from the first target subscriber device indicating one or more identified media items in the stream of media items of the call being provided over the first radio channel was not successfully received at the first target subscriber device, and responsively;

continuing to receive, by the infrastructure controller, first subsequent media items of the call from a source device and buffering at the infrastructure controller, and not providing to the target subscriber device for rendering, the first subsequent media items;

retrieving, by the infrastructure controller, from storage the identified media items identified in the missed media items request;

re-ordering, by the infrastructure controller, the identified media items chronologically with respect to the buffered first subsequent media items to create a re-ordered subsequent media stream; and

transmitting, by the infrastructure controller via a second radio channel, different from the first radio channel and established at a time of the call or on demand to provide the one or more identified media items, the re-ordered subsequent media stream to the target subscriber device for rendering; and

subsequently providing, by the infrastructure controller via the first radio channel to the first target subscriber device for rendering, second subsequent media items of the call over the first radio channel.