OPPORTUNISTIC DELIVERY OF CACHEABLE CONTENT IN A COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK
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Abstract
Systems and methods are described for using opportunistically delayed delivery of content to address sub-optimal bandwidth resource usage in network infrastructures that allow subscribers to share forward link resources. According to some embodiments, content is identified as delayable and assigned to a delaycast queue and/or service flow. For example, a server system of a satellite communications system identifies content that can be delayed to exploit future excess link capacity through multicasting and to exploit subscriber-side storage resources. Some implementations attempt to exploit any excess link resources at any time, while others exploit unused bandwidth only during certain times or when a certain threshold of resources is available. Various embodiments also provide content scoring and/or other prioritization techniques for optimizing exploitation of the delaycast queue.
10 Citations
40 Claims
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1-18. -18. (canceled)
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19. A system for content delivery in a communications infrastructure, the system comprising:
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a request handler subsystem that determines, in response to receiving an explicit request for a media content object from a requesting subscriber terminal over the communications infrastructure, whether the media content object is a cacheable object and whether the media content object is a delayable object; and a communications processing subsystem that; when the request handler subsystem determines that the media content object is a cacheable object and a delayable object; assigns the delayable object to a delaycast queue having a plurality of queued content objects determined to be delayable objects; and schedules the plurality of queued content objects for multicasting over opportunistic capacity as opportunistic capacity becomes available on a communications link of the communications infrastructure; and when the request handler subsystem determines that the media content object is a cacheable object and not a delayable object; assigns the media content object to a multicast service flow for streaming by the requesting subscriber terminal and for local caching by a plurality of non-requesting subscriber terminals; and schedules the media content object for multicasting substantially immediately over provisioned capacity of the communications infrastructure. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22)
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23. A system for content delivery in a communications infrastructure, the system comprising:
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a request handler subsystem that determines, in response to receiving an explicit request for a media content object from a requesting subscriber terminal over the communications infrastructure, whether the media content object is a cacheable object; and a communications processing subsystem, communicatively coupled with the request handler subsystem, that, when the request handler subsystem determines that the media content object is a cacheable object; assigns the media content object to a multicast service flow; multicasts the media content object via the multicast service flow to the requesting subscriber terminal and a plurality of non-requesting subscriber terminals over the communications infrastructure; instructs the requesting subscriber terminal over the communications infrastructure to stream the media content object from the multicast service flow; and instructs the plurality of non-requesting subscriber terminals over the communications infrastructure to store the media content object from the multicast service flow in their respective local caches. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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33. A method for content delivery in a communications infrastructure, the method comprising:
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receiving an explicit request for a media content object from a requesting subscriber terminal over the communications infrastructure; determining, in response to the receiving, whether the media content object is a cacheable object; and when the media content object is determined to be a cacheable object; assigning the media content object to a multicast service flow; multicasting the media content object via the multicast service flow to the requesting subscriber terminal and a plurality of non-requesting subscriber terminals over the communications infrastructure; instructing the requesting subscriber terminal over the communications infrastructure to stream the media content object from the multicast service flow; and instructing the plurality of non-requesting subscriber terminals over the communications infrastructure to store the media content object from the multicast service flow in their respective local caches. - View Dependent Claims (34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40)
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Specification