Mitigating potential video traffic interference

• US 8,613,033 B2
• Filed: 02/23/2012
• Issued: 12/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Huffman, James, Medina, Douglas, Kaufman, Darren
• Primary Examiner(s): Featherstone, Mark D
• Assistant Examiner(s): Doshi, Akshay
• Application Number:
  US13/403,158
• Publication Number:
  US 20120159562A1
• Time in Patent Office: 663 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 725/116
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/12 Arrangements for observation, testing or troubleshooting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/226 Characteristics of the server or Internal components of the server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/24 Monitoring of processes or resources, e.g. monitoring of server load, available bandwidth, upstream requests monitoring of server performance or load G06F11/34; arrangements for observation, testing or troubleshooting for broadcast or for distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2402 Monitoring of the downstream path of the transmission network, e.g. bandwidth available traffic monitoring in data switching networks H04L43/00; monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/61 Network physical structure; Signal processing H04B takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6112 involving terrestrial transmission, e.g. DVB-T
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6338 directed to network

Abstract

A particular method of mitigating potential video traffic interference includes receiving an alert at a network management system, where the alert indicates detection of a signal in an ultra high frequency (UHF) white space frequency at a video head-end of a video distribution network, where the signal has a potential to interfere with video traffic that has been detected. The method also includes sending data to the video head-end, where the data indicates at least one corrective measure to mitigate interference with the video traffic by the signal.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an alert at a network management system, wherein the alert indicates detection of a signal in an ultra high frequency (UHF) white space frequency at a video head-end of a video distribution network, wherein the signal has a potential to interfere with video traffic that has been detected; and

sending data to the video head-end, the data indicating at least one corrective measure to mitigate interference with the video traffic by the signal.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one corrective measure is determined based on input received from a user of the network management system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the network management system is located at a video super head-end of the video distribution network.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one corrective measure includes causing the video traffic to be sent to a geographic area or subscriber group from a different video head-end.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one corrective measure includes altering a direction of a directional antenna at the video head-end.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the alert is sent in response to a detection system associated with the video head-end determining that the signal has a signal strength that satisfies a threshold signal strength.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the UHF white space frequency is within a range of frequencies associated with a video content channel, wherein the video head-end transmits the video traffic via the video content channel.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the UHF white space frequency is adjacent to the range of frequencies associated with the video content channel.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the alert identifies the video content channel.

10. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having processor-readable instructions executable by a processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving an alert at a network management system, wherein the alert indicates detection of a signal in an ultra high frequency (UHF) white space frequency at a video head-end of a video distribution network, wherein the signal has a potential to interfere with video traffic that has been detected; and

sending data to the video head-end, the data indicating at least one corrective measure to mitigate interference with the video traffic by the signal.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the at least one corrective measure includes causing the video traffic to be sent to a geographic area or subscriber group from a different video head-end.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the at least one corrective measure includes altering a direction of a directional antenna at the video head-end.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the alert is sent in response to a detection system associated with the video head-end determining that the signal has a signal strength that satisfies a threshold signal strength.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the alert identifies a video content channel associated with the video traffic.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the alert is a simple network management protocol (SNMP) alarm.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the method further comprises receiving a second alert at the network management system from the video head-end, wherein the second alert indicates depopulation of the UHF white space frequency.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the threshold signal strength is equivalent to between 6 decibels isotropic (dBi) and 10 dBi.

18. A network management system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory accessible to the processor, the memory having processor-readable instructions executable by the processor to perform a method, the method comprising;

receiving an alert indicating detection of a signal in an ultra high frequency (UHF) white space frequency at a video head-end of a video distribution network, wherein the signal has a potential to interfere with video traffic that has been detected; and

sending data to the video head-end, the data indicating at least one corrective measure to mitigate interference with the video traffic by the signal.

19. The network management system of claim 18, wherein the video traffic includes digital television video traffic and wherein the signal has potential to cause video, audio, or both the video and the audio of the digital television video traffic to pixilate, freeze, or a combination thereof.

20. The network management system of claim 18, wherein the signal is detected by a search antenna of a detection system associated with the video head-end.