Response time for a gateway connecting a lower bandwidth network with a higher speed network

• US 10,277,519 B2
• Filed: 01/09/2015
• Issued: 04/30/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Incorporated
• Inventors: Brandt, Anders, Esbensen, Anders, Buron, Jakob, Roum-Moller, Jonas
• Primary Examiner(s): Potratz, Daniel B
• Application Number:
  US14/593,390
• Publication Number:
  US 20150142945A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,572 Days
• Field of Search: 729 9, 370231, 370235
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/00 Arrangements for detecting or preventing errors in the information received correcting synchronisation H04L7/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1614 using bitmaps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1819 with retransmission of additional or different redundancy
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/189 Transmission or retransmission of more than one copy of a message
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2834 Switching of information between an external network and a home network access arrangements H04L12/2856
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2898 Subscriber equipments DSL modems H04M11/062; cable modems H04L12/2801
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6418 Hybrid transport
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2001/0093 Point-to-multipoint
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2849 Audio/video appliances
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/623 Weighted service order
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/103 across network layers, e.g. resolution of network layer into physical layer addresses or address resolution protocol [ARP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5014 using dynamic host configuration protocol [DHCP] or bootstrap protocol [BOOTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0853 using an additional device, e.g. smartcard, SIM or a different communication terminal cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving additional secure or trusted devices H04L9/3234
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/70 Media network packetisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/033 of the user plane, e.g. user's traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/06 Optimizing the usage of the radio link, e.g. header compression, information sizing , discarding information system modifying transmission characteristic according to link quality by modifying frame length H04L1/0007; dynamic adaptation of the packet size for flow control or congestion control H04L47/365
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/33 : for indoor environments, e.g. buildings
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 : Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0261 : managing power supply demand, e.g. depending on battery level
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/00 : Wireless channel access
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 : Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/16 : Gateway arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 92/02 : Inter-networking arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 : in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Networks with a plurality of independent nodes are useful when the nodes can communicate with one another and with nodes and resources outside the network. The present disclosure addresses ways to encapsulate packets as they move from a sender to a receiver, and also addresses ways for speeding up messages between nodes by orderly queuing and processing of messages. The present disclosure also includes techniques for mapping nodes in a home area network to IP addresses in a local area network.

Claims

1. A method for operating a network, the method comprising:

connecting nodes in a home area network;

providing access to the nodes in the home area network via a gateway that connects the home area network to at least one outside local area network (LAN);

predicting whether a message, received at the gateway from a client in the at least one outside LAN, will be transmitted to a destination node in the home area network as a fast delivery message or a slow delivery message, wherein the gateway predicts the received message will be transmitted to the destination node as a fast delivery message when;

a number of hops between the gateway and the destination node is less than a set limit; and

the destination node has longer awake periods compared to other nodes in the home area network that have shorter awake periods; and

the destination node is currently in an awake state; and

a size of the received message is less than a set size limit; and

a transmission time required to deliver the received message to the destination node does not exceed a threshold;

otherwise the received message is predicted to be a slow delivery message; and

sending the received message as a slow delivery message to the destination node in the home area network only when there are no fast delivery messages awaiting delivery.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the gateway predicts the received message will be transmitted to the destination node as a fast delivery message or a slow delivery message based on prior knowledge of the home area network, the nodes and the message.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the gateway predicts the received message will be transmitted to the destination node as a fast delivery or a slow delivery based on at least one operating characteristic of the destination node.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the gateway predicts the received message will be transmitted to the destination node as a fast delivery or a slow delivery based on at least one of a size of the received message and a set time period required to deliver the received message to the destination node and receive an acknowledgement from the destination node.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of predicting is based at least partly on one or more criteria judged by the gateway.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising adjusting the one or more criteria based on actual delivery times versus expected delivery times of messages to the nodes of the home area network.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending a pending acknowledgement to a sender of the slow delivery message.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending a pending acknowledgement with an expected waiting time to a sender of the slow delivery message.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the nodes appear to clients of the LAN as separately addressable nodes.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the home area network has a lower bandwidth than the at least one outside LAN.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the nodes in the home area network communicate with one another without going through the gateway.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the predicting whether the received message will be a fast delivery message or a slow delivery message comprises making one of a relative transmission time comparison and an absolute transmission time comparison.

13. A method for operating a network, the method comprising:

connecting nodes via a gateway in a home area network;

providing access to the nodes in the home area network via the gateway, the gateway also connecting the home area network to at least one outside local area network (LAN);

predicting whether a message, received at the gateway from a client in the at least one LAN, will be transmitted to a destination node in the home area network as a fast delivery message or a slow delivery message, wherein said predicting comprises predicting the received message will be transmitted to the destination node as a fast delivery message when;

a number of hops between the gateway and the destination node is less than a set limit; and

the destination node has longer awake periods compared to other nodes in the home area network that have shorter awake periods; and

the destination node is currently in an awake state; and

a size of the received message is less than a set size limit; and

a transmission time required to deliver the received message to the destination node does not exceed a threshold;

otherwise the received message is predicted to be a slow delivery message;

sending the received message to the destination node in the home area network as a slow delivery message or as a fast delivery message depending upon the predicting; and

aborting sending a slow delivery message when a fast delivery message is presented to the gateway from the at least one outside LAN.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising delivering a slow delivery message only when there are no fast delivery messages awaiting delivery.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising tracking a first group of one or more home area network nodes having a higher delivery delay than a second group of one more home area network nodes.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising predicting the received message sent to a node of the first group as a slow delivery message and predicting the received message sent to a node of the second group as a fast delivery message.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising delivering a message predicted to be a fast delivery message before delivering a message predicted to be a slow delivery message.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising predicting the received message will be transmitted to the destination node as a slow delivery message when the destination node has a history of long delivery times.

19. The system of claim 13, wherein the predicting whether the received message will be a fast delivery message or a slow delivery message comprises making one of a relative transmission time comparison and an absolute transmission time comparison.

20. The system of claim 13, wherein the aborting the sending the slow delivery message comprises stopping an active transmission of the slow delivery message.

21. A system, comprising:

a home area network with a plurality of nodes; and

a gateway for the home area network, the gateway connecting the plurality of nodes and in contact with each of the plurality of nodes, the gateway designed for connecting to one or more local area networks (LANs),

wherein the home area network has a lower bandwidth than the one or more LANs, and

wherein the gateway is adapted for predicting whether a message, received at the gateway from a client in the one or more LANs, will be transmitted to a destination node in the home area network as a fast delivery message or a slow delivery message, wherein the gateway is adapted to predict the received message will be transmitted to the destination node as a fast delivery message when;

a number of hops between the gateway and the destination node is less than a set limit; and

the destination node has longer awake periods compared to other nodes in the home area network that have shorter awake periods; and

the destination node is currently in an awake state; and

a size of the received message is less than a set size limit; and

a transmission time required to deliver the received message to the destination node does not exceed a threshold;

otherwise the received message is predicted to be a slow delivery message;

wherein the gateway is further adapted for delivering a fast delivery message to the destination node in the home area network before delivering a slow delivery message to the destination node in the home area network.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the home area network and the one or more LANs operate on Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein the gateway is adapted to predict a fast delivery message or a slow delivery message based on prior knowledge of the home area network, the nodes and the message.

24. The system of claim 21, wherein the gateway is adapted for allowing clients in the one or more LANs to identify each of the plurality of nodes in the home area network.

25. The system of claim 21, wherein the nodes in the home area network are adapted to communicate with one another without going through the gateway.

26. The system of claim 21, wherein the gateway is further adapted to predict the received message as a slow delivery message when

the destination node has a history of long delivery times.

27. The system of claim 21, wherein the determining whether the received message will be a fast delivery message or a slow delivery message comprises making one of a relative transmission time comparison and an absolute transmission time comparison.

28. The system of claim 21, further comprising predicting the received message will be a slow delivery message in response to an actual transmission time of the received message exceeding a threshold.