Scaling content communicated over a network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9609038-B2
Application number	US-201514938168-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 11, 2015
Priority date	Jun 25, 2010
Publication date	Mar 28, 2017
Grant date	Mar 28, 2017

Abstract

An architecture is provided that can scale content resolution in order to mitigate errors in a provisioned service of a communication network, such as a wireless service or a femtocell service that integrates with DSL or other broadband carriers. The architecture can identify fault conditions relating to e.g., bandwidth oversubscription or symbolization integrity. Based upon such identification, the architecture can alter encoding format codecs of certain types of content in order to reduce their resolution/quality, thereby mitigating bandwidth oversubscription fault conditions or freeing up space (without necessarily increasing bandwidth) to insert additional FEC code.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A network device, comprising:
a processor; and
a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:
determining fault data indicative of a defined fault condition associated with network traffic transported by a gateway device of a communication network;
determining a portion of the network traffic transported by the gateway device comprises content of a defined type, wherein the content of the defined type represents a data stream, comprising video data, that has been encoded at a first bit rate using an encoder that prescribes the first bit rate and a second bit rate that is less than the first bit rate;
determining scaling data indicative of a scaling factor based on the encoder and based on the fault data; and
reducing a resolution of the content of the defined type transported by the gateway device by the scaling factor, wherein the reducing the resolution comprises changing the first bit rate of the data stream to the second bit rate.

2. The network device of claim 1 , wherein the reducing the resolution comprises encoding the data stream at the second bit rate.

3. The network device of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise determining a proportion of bandwidth associated with the gateway device that is allocated to transporting the content of the defined type.

4. The network device of claim 3 , wherein the operations further comprise determining the scaling factor further based on the proportion.

5. The network device of claim 1 , wherein the determining the defined fault condition comprises determining a condition in which the network traffic transported by the gateway device exceeds a defined maximum bandwidth allocation value.

6. The network device of claim 1 , wherein the determining the defined fault condition comprises determining a condition in which the network traffic transported by the gateway device comprises logical errors in excess of a defined maximum error rate value.

7. The network device of claim 6 , wherein the operations further comprise introducing a forward error correction code into the network traffic transported by the gateway device.

8. The network device of claim 1 , wherein the determining the scaling factor comprises determining the scaling factor based on a comparison of the network traffic with a defined maximum bandwidth allocation value and a defined maximum error rate value.

9. The network device of claim 1 , wherein the determining the scaling factor comprises determining the scaling factor based on a service provision agreement.

10. The network device of claim 1 , wherein the portion is a first portion, wherein the content is first content, wherein the defined type is a first defined type, and wherein the operations further comprise determining a second portion of the network traffic transported by the gateway device comprises second content of a second defined type suitable for scaling.

11. The network device of claim 10 , wherein the operations further comprise determining scaling order data indicative of a first priority assigned to the first content of the first defined type and a second priority assigned to the second content of the second defined type with regard to scaling.

12. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:
determining fault data indicative of a defined fault condition with respect to network traffic transported by a gateway device of a communication network;
determining that a portion of the network traffic transported by the gateway device comprises a defined type of content that comprises a data stream, comprising audio data, that has been encoded at a first bit rate using a codec that prescribes the first bit rate and a second bit rate that is less than the first bit rate;
determining scaling data indicative of a scaling factor based on the codec and the fault data; and
reducing a resolution of the content of the defined type transported via the gateway device by the scaling factor, wherein the reducing resolution comprises modifying the first bit rate of the data stream to the second bit rate.

13. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 12 , wherein the operations further comprise determining a proportion of bandwidth of the gateway device that is allocated to transporting the content of the defined type.

14. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the determining the scaling factor comprises determining the scaling factor based on the proportion.

15. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 12 , wherein the portion is a first portion, wherein the content is first content, wherein the defined type is a first defined type, and wherein the operations further comprise determining a second portion of the network traffic transported by the gateway device comprises second content of second defined type suitable for scaling.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the operations further comprise determining scaling order data indicative of a priority assigned to the first content of the first defined type and the second content of the second defined type.

17. A method, comprising:
determining, by a system comprising a processor, fault data indicative of a defined fault condition associated with network traffic transported by a gateway device;
determining, by the system, a portion of the network traffic transported by the gateway device comprises content of a defined type suitable for scaling, wherein the content of the defined type represents a data stream, comprising at least one of video data or voice data, that has been encoded at a first bit rate using an encoder that prescribes the first bit rate and a second bit rate that is lower than the first bit rate;
determining, by the system, scaling data indicative of a scaling factor based on the encoder and the fault data;
reducing, by the system, a resolution of the content of the defined type transported by the gateway device by the scaling factor, wherein the reducing the resolution comprises changing the first bit rate of the data stream to the second bit rate.

18. The method of claim 17 , further comprising:
determining, by the system, a proportion of bandwidth associated with the gateway device that is allocated to transporting the content of the defined type,
wherein the determining the scaling data comprises determining the scaling factor further based on the proportion.

19. The method of claim 17 , further comprising generating, by the system, a forward error correction code and introducing the forward error correction code in the network traffic transported by the gateway device.

20. The method of claim 17 , wherein the content is first content, and wherein the defined type is a first defined type, and further comprising determining, by the system, scaling order data indicative of a first priority assigned to the first content of the first defined type and a second priority of second content of a second defined type with regard to scaling.

Assignees

• At & T Ip I Lp

Inventors

• Medina Douglas
• Coppa Frank
• Johnston Robert

Classifications

• H04L43/0823

  Errors, e.g. transmission errors · CPC title

• H04L47/38

  by adapting coding or compression rate · CPC title

• H04L1/0014

  by adapting the source coding · CPC title

• H04L41/0681

  Configuration of triggering conditions · CPC title

• H04L1/0003 Primary

  by switching between different modulation schemes · CPC title