Encapsulation of data packets

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11196676-B2
Application number	US-201916594492-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 7, 2019
Priority date	Nov 15, 2018
Publication date	Dec 7, 2021
Grant date	Dec 7, 2021

Abstract

Example embodiments describe a transmitter including data encapsulation circuitry configured to encapsulate data packets into Data Transport Units, DTUs, for further transmission over a communication medium. The data packets have respective Quality of Service, QoS, tolerances. The data encapsulation circuitry is configured to delay transmission of first data packets with a lower QoS tolerance and to group the first data packets in a subset of DTUs available for transportation of the first data packets.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A transmitter comprising data encapsulation circuitry configured to:
encapsulate data packets into Data Transport Units (DTUs), for transmission over a communication medium; the data packets having respective quality of service (QoS) tolerances; and
delay transmission of first data packets with a lower QoS tolerance and group the first data packets in a subset of DTUs available for transportation of the first data packets.

2. The transmitter according to claim 1 , wherein the subset comprises on average M DTUs used for transportation of the first data packets out of N DTUs available for transportation of the first data packets, M and N being two non-null positive integers with M lower than N.

3. The transmitter according to claim 1 , wherein the QoS tolerances relate to at least one of a delay tolerance or a loss tolerance.

4. The transmitter according to claim 1 , wherein at least one of the subset or the delaying is determined or adjusted based on at least one of:
scheduling information;
a traffic load of the first data packets;
a total traffic load;
an arrival pattern of the first data packets;
QoS requirements associated with the lower QoS tolerance;
information regarding the communication medium; or
information regarding disturbances over the communication medium.

5. The transmitter according to claim 1 , wherein the data encapsulation circuitry further comprises a retransmission buffer configured to buffer transmitted DTUs; and wherein the data encapsulation circuitry is further configured to prioritize retransmission of the DTUs of the subset.

6. The transmitter according to claim 1 , wherein the data encapsulation circuitry further comprises a retransmission buffer configured to buffer transmitted DTUs; and wherein the data encapsulation circuitry is further configured to configure a higher number of re-transmission opportunities for the DTUs of the subset.

7. The transmitter according to claim 1 , wherein the data encapsulation circuitry is further configured to multiplex second data packets with a higher QoS tolerance in the subset of DTUs.

8. The transmitter according to claim 1 , wherein the data encapsulation circuitry is further configured to, when enough of the first data packets are available to fill a complete DTU, transmit the complete DTU with the first data packets without further delaying.

9. The transmitter according to claim 1 , wherein the communication medium is a wired point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication medium.

10. The transmitter according to claim 9 , wherein the transmission is a DSL-based transmission and the data packets are DTU frames.

11. The transmitter according to claim 1 , wherein the communication medium is a wireless point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication medium.

12. A subscriber device comprising the transmitter according to claim 1 .

13. An access node comprising at least one of the transmitter according to claim 1 .

14. A method comprising:
encapsulating data packets into Data Transport Units (DTUs) for further transmission over a communication medium, the data packets having respective Quality of Service (QoS) tolerances;
delaying the transmission over the communication medium of first data packets with a lower QoS tolerance; and
grouping the first data packets in a subset of DTUs available for transportation of the first data packets.

Assignees

• Nokia Solutions & Networks Oy

Inventors

• Pauwels Bart
• Lefevre Yannick
• Maes Jochen

Classifications

• H04L49/90

  Buffering arrangements · CPC title

• H04L47/32 Primary

  by discarding or delaying data units, e.g. packets or frames · CPC title

• H04L47/54 Primary

  Loss aware scheduling · CPC title

• H04L47/624

  Altering the ordering of packets in an individual queue · CPC title

• H04L47/24

  Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS · CPC title