Maintaining and distributing state due to temporary failures in a shared bandwidth network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10667264-B2
Application number	US-201816172496-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 26, 2018
Priority date	Apr 18, 2018
Publication date	May 26, 2020
Grant date	May 26, 2020

Abstract

A shared bandwidth network system to communicate network traffic between terminals and an external network is disclosed. The system includes: a point of presence (POP) for the external network; Radio Frequency Gateways (RFGWs) wherein each RFGW of the RFGWs provides one or more Radio Frequency (RF) paths, and each of the RF paths links a respective RFGW of the RFGWs with one or more terminals of the terminals; an RF path state manager to manage a RF path state for each of the RF paths; a Satellite Network Core (SNC); a Software Defined Network (SDN) controller to maintain a topology based on the RF path states, wherein the topology includes the POP, the RFGWs and the SNC; and a network layer to route network traffic between the POP, the RFGWs and the SNC based on the topology. The SNC includes a bandwidth manager to allocate bandwidth, to provide flow control to the terminals, and to provide a key state including a bandwidth allocation for each of the terminals, a key state manager to maintain the key states, and a link layer control (LLC) to transport network traffic over each of the RF paths.

First claim

We claim as our invention:

1. A shared bandwidth network system to communicate network traffic between terminals and an external network, the shared bandwidth network system comprising:
a point of presence (POP) for the external network;
Radio Frequency Gateways (RFGWs) wherein each RFGW of the RFGWs provides one or more Radio Frequency (RF) paths, and each of the RF paths links a respective RFGW of the RFGWs with one or more terminals of the terminals;
an RF path state manager to manage a RF path state for each of the RF paths;
a Satellite Network Core (SNC) comprising
a bandwidth manager to allocate bandwidth, to provide flow control to the terminals, and to provide a key state comprising a bandwidth allocation for each of the terminals,
a key state manager to maintain the key state for each of the terminals, and
a link layer control (LLC) to transport network traffic over each of the RF paths;

a Software Defined Network (SDN) controller to maintain a topology based on the RF path states, wherein the topology comprises the POP, the RFGWs and the SNC; and
a network layer to route network traffic between the POP, the RFGWs and the SNC based on the topology,
wherein
the SNC comprises a first SNC and a second SNC,
the RF paths are distributed among the first SNC and the second SNC, and
the POP comprises a first POP and a second POP.

2. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein the LLC transports network traffic based on the bandwidth allocation for each of the terminals maintained in the key states.

3. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein the network layer routes based on source routing, and the SDN controller provides a source routing based on a source of the network traffic and the topology.

4. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 3 , further comprising a Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) controller to manage an orchestration of the topology and active NFVs.

5. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , further comprising a diversity controller to provide a notification to the SDN controller, wherein
the RFGWs comprise a first RFGW and other RFGWs,
the notification notifies the SDN controller that the network traffic using the first RFGW needs to be directed to one of the other RFGWs, and
the SDN controller updates the topology based on the notification from the diversity controller.

6. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 5 , wherein the network traffic directing comprises the SNC replicating the network traffic for the one of the RFGWs to the one of the other RFGWs.

7. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 5 , wherein the network traffic directing comprises using the bandwidth allocation, allocated prior to the directing, for a respective one or more terminals.

8. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 5 , wherein the diversity controller notifies the SDN controller of an outage, an imminent outage, or a RF path link performance below a threshold for the first RFGW.

9. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 5 , wherein
the notification notifies the SDN controller that the network traffic using the first SNC or the first POP needs to be directed among either the second SNC or the second POP, and
the SDN controller updates the topology based on the notification from the diversity controller.

10. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , further comprising a diversity controller to provide a notification to the SDN controller, wherein
the notification notifies the SDN controller that the network traffic using the first SNC needs to be directed to the second SNC, and
the SDN controller updates the topology based on the notification from the diversity controller.

11. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , further comprising a diversity controller to provide a notification to the SDN controller, wherein
the notification notifies the SDN controller that the network traffic using the first POP needs to be directed to the second POP, and
the SDN controller updates the topology based on the notification from the diversity controller.

12. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein the RF paths communicate with a respective one or more terminals via a satellite, the RF paths comprise beams, and the LLC comprises a Satellite Layer Control (SLC).

13. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein the RFGW comprises a cellular base station, the RF paths comprise cell signals, and the LLC comprises a Radio Layer Control (RLC).

14. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein the POP comprises an Internet Point of Presence (POP).

15. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein the SNC maintains one or more of a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) acceleration state, a compression state, a web acceleration state, an application and service state, and an outer segment routing state.

16. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein the key state further comprises an inroute bandwidth allocation state, a bandwidth allocation backlog, and a predictive bandwidth allocation backlog.

17. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein the RF path state comprises one or more of a timing state, a power state, a Modulation and Coding (MODCOD), a carrier, a symbol rate, a RF path link capacity, a RF path link up/down status, and a RF path link performance.

18. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein the topology comprises one or more of RF paths to RFGW map, a core backhaul network ring and tail topology, priorities, an initial resource pool to SNC map, a RFGW switchover state, an SNC status, a current resource pool to SNC map, a RF path link capacity, a RF path link up/down status, and a RF path link performance.

19. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein the network traffic is segregated by a plurality of network traffic priorities, and the SDN controller provides a source routing per network traffic priority.

20. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein the network traffic is relayed between the terminals and the POP with a nested layer spanning from each of the RFGWs to the POP via the SNC.

21. The shared bandwidth network system of claim 1 , wherein each of the RFGWs comprises a Modulator/Demodulator (modem) to transform between RF bursts and packets.

22. A method for communicating network traffic between terminals and an external network with a shared bandwidth network system, the method comprising:
providing a point of presence (POP) for the external network;
providing Radio Frequency Gateways (RFGWs) wherein each RFGW of the RFGWs provides one or more Radio Frequency (RF) paths and each of the RF paths links a respective RFGW of the RFGWs with one or more terminals of the terminals;
managing a RF path state for each of the RF paths;
providing a Satellite Network Core (SNC) for
allocating bandwidth, providing flow control to the terminals, and providing a key state comprising a bandwidth allocation for each of the terminals,
maintaining the key states, and
transporting network traffic over each of the RF paths;

maintaining a topology based on the RF path states, wherein the topology comprises the POP, the RFGWs and the SNC; and
routing network traffic between the POP, the RFGWs and the SNC based on the topology,
wherein
the SNC comprises a first SNC and a second SNC,
the RF paths are distributed among the first SNC and the second SNC,

Assignees

• Torres Rob
• Whitefield David
• Ramakrishnan Jayant
• Hughes Network Systems Llc

Inventors

• Torres Rob
• Whitefield David
• Ramakrishnan Jayant

Classifications

• H04W84/06

  Airborne or Satellite Networks (space-based or airborne stations H04B7/185) · CPC title

• H04W16/02

  Resource partitioning among network components, e.g. reuse partitioning · CPC title

• H04L45/306 Primary

  Route determination based on the nature of the carried application · CPC title

• H04W16/04

  Traffic adaptive resource partitioning · CPC title

• H04L45/245

  Link aggregation, e.g. trunking · CPC title