Adaptive Transport Protocol Selection for Bandwidth-Constrained Content Delivery
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing content transmission technologies face challenges in maintaining quality due to fluctuating network bandwidth, particularly when multiple applications share bandwidth, leading to degraded video and audio quality.
Innovation Solution
A device that dynamically selects between TCP and UDP transport protocols based on available bandwidth, allowing for adaptive content delivery by choosing the protocol that best matches current network conditions, ensuring optimal bit rate alignment with available bandwidth.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If multiple applications share bandwidth in a communication network, then network resource utilization increases, but content transmission quality deteriorates due to bandwidth fluctuations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic protocol selection between TCP and UDP based on real-time network conditions. The system continuously monitors bandwidth availability and automatically switches transport protocols to match current network state, enabling adaptive content delivery that maintains quality while utilizing available bandwidth efficiently
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the transport protocol parameter (TCP vs UDP) based on bandwidth conditions. When bandwidth is sufficient, TCP is used for reliable delivery; when bandwidth is limited or fluctuating, UDP is selected to prevent congestion and maintain streaming quality, thus adapting to network variations
2Stability of the object's composition
If a stricter control algorithm is imposed for choosing transmission bit rate, then content quality stability improves, but adaptability to bandwidth fluctuations deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts both transmission bit rate and transport protocol selection based on real-time bandwidth monitoring. This dual adaptation mechanism allows the system to maintain stable quality within each protocol while switching between protocols to respond to significant bandwidth changes, achieving both stability and adaptability
3Reliability
If the first transport protocol (TCP) is used for content transmission, then data delivery reliability improves, but bandwidth efficiency deteriorates when bandwidth is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces a protocol selection mechanism that acts as an intermediary between the content delivery system and the network. Based on bandwidth conditions, it selects TCP as the intermediary for reliable delivery when bandwidth is abundant, or UDP as an intermediary for more efficient bandwidth utilization when bandwidth is limited, thus resolving the contradiction between reliability and efficiency
Data Source
Figure 1~4
AI summary
A device (D) is intended to obtain content by means of at least two transport protocols having different requirements in terms of available network bandwidth. Such content is available in different versions on at least a content server (SC) and the versions correspond to different transmission binary bit rates and are subdivided into chunks adapted to be transmitted via a communication network (N). This device (D) is arranged to choose a transport protocol that must be used at a given time by the server to transmit at least one required next chunk of a version of a content, wherein the chosen transport protocol comprises either a first transport protocol when a current value of the available bandwidth of the communication network (N) is strictly greater than a first threshold, or a second transport protocol when this current value of the bandwidth is less than or equal to the first threshold. The device (D) is further arranged for sending to the content server (SC) a request for transmitting at least one required next chunk of a version of a content by means of the chosen transport protocol.