Indication of Wireless Signal Quality

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016112884-A1
Application number	US-201414517330-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 17, 2014
Priority date	Oct 17, 2014
Publication date	Apr 21, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Techniques for indication of wireless signal quality are described. According to various implementations, attributes of a wireless signal are detected and processed to ascertain a quality of the wireless signal. Based on an ascertained signal quality, indicia of the signal quality can be exposed. For instance, an indication of wireless signal quality is communicated to an application and/or service that manages communication of media data. According to one or more embodiments, an application/service may perform one or more actions based on the indication of signal quality, such as a procedure to improve signal quality, a procedure to optimize wireless performance, and so forth.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A system comprising:
at least one processor; and one or more computer-readable storage media including instructions stored thereon that, responsive to execution by the at least one processor, cause the system perform operations including:
receiving, by at least one of an application or a service, an indication of signal quality of a wireless signal, the signal quality based on media data communicated between a client device and an endpoint device via the at least one of the application or the service; and
performing, by the at least one of the application or the service, one or more actions based on the indication of signal quality, the one or more actions including at least one of:
initiating a corrective procedure to attempt to increase the signal quality; or
initiating an optimization procedure based on the indication of signal quality.

2 . A system as described in claim 1 , wherein the media data comprises at least one of voice data or video data communicated between the client device and the endpoint device.

3 . A system as described in claim 1 , wherein the media data comprises test data communicated between the client device and the endpoint device.

4 . A system as described in claim 1 , wherein said initiating the corrective procedure comprise performing, by the at least one of the application or the service, an error correction procedure on the media data.

5 . A system as described in claim 1 , wherein said initiating the corrective procedure comprise performing, by the at least one of the application or the service, forward error correction (FEC) on the media data.

6 . A system as described in claim 1 , wherein said initiating the corrective procedure comprise performing, by the at least one of the application or the service, a cyclical redundancy check (CRC) on the media data.

7 . A system as described in claim 1 , wherein said initiating the optimization procedure comprises at least one of increasing a codec rate used for communicating media data, or decreasing transmission power used to transmit media data.

8 . A system as described in claim 1 , wherein the one or more actions further include outputting a signal quality indicator based on the signal quality.

9 . A system as described in claim 1 , wherein the one or more actions further include outputting a signal quality indicator based on the signal quality as part of a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface comprising a primary graphical interface of the at least one of the application or the service.

10 . A system as described in claim 1 , wherein the one or more actions further include causing a selectable control to be displayed, the selectable control being selectable to cause said initiating the corrective procedure.

11 . A system as described in claim 1 , wherein the one or more actions further include causing a selectable control to be displayed, the selectable control being selectable to cause details concerning the signal quality to be presented.

12 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
ascertaining a signal quality of a wireless signal based at least in part on errors detected in data communicated via the wireless signal, the data including media data communicated between two or more devices; and communicating a notification of the signal quality to one or more of a communication application or a communication service that manages communication of the media data.

13 . A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 12 , wherein the errors are detected via one or more of a cyclical redundancy check (CRC) performed on the data, or forward error correction (FEC) decoding performed on the data.

14 . A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 12 , wherein the errors are detected based on a number of retransmissions of at least some of the data.

15 . A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 12 , wherein said ascertaining and said communicating are performed by a quality service that is remote from a device on which the communication application resides.

16 . A computer-implemented method as recited in claim 12 , wherein the indication of the signal quality includes one of an indication of a trend of decreasing signal quality, or a trend of increasing signal quality.

17 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving an indication of signal quality of a wireless signal, the signal quality based at least in part on errors detected in media data communicated via at least one of an application or a service; and performing, by the at least one of the application or the service, one or more actions based on the indication of signal quality, the one or more actions including causing a graphical user interface to be displayed that includes a visual indication of the signal quality.

18 . A computer-implemented method as described in claim 17 , wherein the one or more actions further include causing a procedure to be performed to attempt to increase the signal quality.

19 . A computer-implemented method as described in claim 17 , wherein the one or more actions further include causing a procedure to be performed to attempt to increase the signal quality, the procedure including performing, by the one or more of the application or the service, at least one of forward error correction (FEC) or a cyclical redundancy check (CRC) on media data.

20 . A computer-implemented method as described in claim 17 , wherein the one or more actions further include causing one or more suggestions for increasing the signal quality to be displayed via the graphical user interface.

Assignees

• Microsoft Corp

Inventors

• Hassan Amer A
• Jefremov Andrei

Classifications

• H04L1/0026 Primary

  Transmission of channel quality indication · CPC title

• H04L1/0009

  by adapting the channel coding (H04L1/1812 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H04L1/0014

  by adapting the source coding · CPC title

• H04W24/02 Primary

  Arrangements for optimising operational condition · CPC title

• H04L41/22

  comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI] · CPC title