APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR BANDWIDTH SAVING AND ON-DEMAND DATA DELIVERY FOR A MOBILE DEVICE

• US 20120254327A1
• Filed: 06/30/2011
• Published: 10/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Onavo Mobile Limited (Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.))
• Inventors: TIGER, Roi, ROSEN, Guy, ARIAV, Yuval
• Granted Patent: US 9,559,868 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/08 Annexed information, e.g. attachments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals

Abstract

A method for reducing data bandwidth usage in wireless communication comprises receiving a request from the a mobile device to provide the an e-mail message; sending a request to the an e-mail server for delivery of the e-mail message; analyzing the e-mail message delivered from the e-mail server to determine if a size of the e-mail message is above a threshold value, and if not expanding the e-mail content to be above the threshold value; acknowledging to the mobile device the existence of the e-mail message and its respective size; and delivering to the mobile device header content of the e-mail content, thereby only a small fraction of the data corresponding to the e-mail message is actually delivered to the mobile device.

Claims

1. A network component adapted for reducing data bandwidth usage in wireless communication, comprising:

an interface to a network for communicating with at least an e-mail server and to at least one mobile device, wherein the network component is in a path between the at least e-mail server and the at least one mobile device; and

a processing unit for processing a request from the at least one mobile device to the at least e-mail server and causing each e-mail message received by the network component from the at least e-mail server to be viewed by the at least one mobile device as being of a size that is above a threshold value of the at least one mobile device, thereby providing to the at least one mobile device only preview information of each received e-mail message, thereby enabling a user of the at least one mobile device to determine whether to download the each received e-mail message to the at least one mobile device.

2. The network component of claim 1, wherein the processing unit determines whether at least an attachment to the each received e-mail message is above the threshold value and if not, expanding the attachment to be of a size that is larger than the threshold value, wherein the threshold value is determined by an e-mail application executed by the at least one mobile device.

3. The network component of claim 1, wherein the processing unit determines whether at least a text portion of each received e-mail message is above the threshold value and if not, expands the text portion to be of a size that is larger than the threshold value, wherein the threshold value is determined by an e-mail application executed by the at least one mobile device.

4. The network component of claim 3, wherein the expanding the text portion is followed by compression of the expanded text of the each received e-mail message.

5. The network component of claim 4, wherein the compression is at least a GZIP compression.

6. The network component of claim 3, wherein expanding the text portion includes at least one of:

adding line breaks; and

adding space characters.

7. The network component of claim 1, wherein the network component is at least one of:

a proxy server, a virtual private network (VPN) server, a traffic shaper, a router, and a network address translator (NAT).

8. A network component adapted for reducing data bandwidth usage in wireless communication, comprising:

an interface to a network for communicating with at least an e-mail server and to at least one mobile device; and

a processing unit for processing a request from the at least one mobile device to the at least e-mail server and causing an e-mail message received from the at least e-mail server containing an attachment that can be reduced in quality to be sent to the at least one mobile device in a reduced quality while causing the at least e-mail server to recognize the received e-mail as a candidate for any one of a smart reply and a smart forward.

9. The network component of claim 8, wherein the network component further causes the at least e-mail server to maintain a copy of the attachment prior to quality reduction;

and responsive to a request from a user of the mobile device to perform any one of a reply and a forward of the received e-mail message, to attach the saved copy of the attachment to any one of a forwarded e-mail and a replied e-mail.

10. The network component of claim 9, wherein the attachment is any one of:

an image file, a photograph file, a video clip and a text file.

11. The network component of claim 8, wherein the network component is at least one of:

a proxy server, a virtual private network (VPN) server, a traffic shaper, a router, and a network address translator (NAT).

12. A method for reducing data bandwidth usage in wireless communication, comprising:

receiving a request from a mobile device to provide an e-mail message;

sending a request to an e-mail server for delivery of the e-mail message;

analyzing the e-mail message delivered from the e-mail server to determine if a size of the e-mail message is above a threshold value, and if not expanding the e-mail content to be above the threshold value;

acknowledging to the mobile device the existence of the e-mail message and its respective size; and

delivering to the mobile device header content of the e-mail content, thereby only a small fraction of the data corresponding to the e-mail message is actually delivered to the mobile device.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein analyzing the received e-mail message further comprises:

determining whether at least an attachment to the e-mail message delivered from the e-mail server is above the threshold value; and

expanding the attachment to be of a size that is larger than the threshold value, if the size of the attachment is below the threshold value, wherein the threshold value is set by an e-mail application executed by the mobile device.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein analyzing the received e-mail message further comprises:

determining whether at least a text portion of the e-mail message delivered from the e-mail server is above the threshold value; and

expanding the text portion of the e-mail message to be of a size that is larger than the threshold value if the size of the text portion is below the threshold value, wherein the threshold value is set by an e-mail application executed by the mobile device.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein expanding the text portion is followed by compression of the expanded text of the e-mail message.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the compression is at least a GZIP compression.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the expanding the text portion includes at least one of:

adding line breaks and adding space characters.

18. A computer software product embedded in a non-transient computer readable medium containing instructions that when executed on the computer perform the method of claim 12.

19. A method for reducing data bandwidth usage in wireless communication, comprising:

receiving a request from a mobile device to provide an e-mail message;

sending a request to an e-mail server for delivery of the e-mail message;

analyzing the e-mail message delivered from the e-mail server to determine if the e-mail message includes an attachment that can be reduced in quality when sent to the mobile device;

reducing the quality of the attachment; and

delivering to the mobile device the reduced quality attachment.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprises:

causing the e-mail server to recognize the received e-mail message as a candidate for one of any one of a smart reply and a smart forward;

thereby causing the e-mail server to maintain a copy of the attachment prior to the quality reduction.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

receiving a request from the mobile device to perform one of reply or forward an e-mail that contains the quality reduced attachment; and

causing the e-mail server to replace the quality reduced attachment with a saved copy of the attachment prior to quality reduction.

22. The method of claim 19, wherein the attachment is any one of:

an image file, a photograph file, a video clip, and a text file.

23. A computer software product embedded in a non-transient computer readable medium containing instructions that when executed on the computer perform the method of claim 19.