Agile Transport Protocol Probing for Cellular Network Capacity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing transport protocols in cellular networks are inefficient, leading to resource saturation and throughput degradation due to their design for wired and local wireless networks, which do not accurately reflect congestion levels in cellular networks with per-device queues, causing poor resource utilization and network policy objective failures.
Innovation Solution
The Agile Transport Protocol (ATP) uses a proxy server to probe communication paths with probe burst packet sets to identify spare capacity, delivering background traffic flows during idle periods while maintaining reserve capacity, and yielding to foreground traffic flows when busy, using packet inter-arrival times for accurate capacity estimation and load determination.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If existing transport protocols are used in cellular networks, then backward compatibility with wired and local wireless networks is maintained, but network resource saturation and throughput degradation occur due to inaccurate congestion detection
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the fundamental parameters of congestion detection by moving from end-to-end RTT-based detection to network-side per-queue packet inter-arrival time monitoring. This parameter change enables accurate detection of cellular network congestion conditions, allowing the transport protocol to adapt its behavior to cellular network characteristics while maintaining compatibility with existing protocols.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a network-side intermediary (the network entity monitoring packet inter-arrival times) that mediates between the transmitter and receiver. This intermediary provides accurate congestion information about the cellular network path, enabling better transport protocol decisions without requiring fundamental changes to end devices.
2Reliability
If per-device queues are implemented in cellular networks, then user-specific service quality is improved, but existing transport protocols fail to accurately determine path capacity leading to poor resource utilization
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by monitoring packet inter-arrival times specifically at the per-queue level in the cellular network. Instead of using global end-to-end measurements that average over multiple paths and devices, the system measures congestion locally at each user's dedicated queue, providing accurate capacity information for resource allocation decisions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements feedback by having the network entity continuously monitor packet inter-arrival times and use this information to feed back capacity status to the transport protocol. This feedback loop enables the protocol to dynamically adjust resource allocation based on actual cellular network conditions, improving both service quality and resource utilization efficiency.
3Reliability
If background traffic flows are delivered using conventional protocols, then network coverage is maintained, but severe throughput degradation occurs due to lack of spare capacity identification
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by having the transport protocol proactively probe for spare capacity in the communication path before delivering background traffic flows. By measuring packet inter-arrival times and identifying available capacity in advance, the protocol can determine whether to delay background traffic transmission, preventing throughput degradation while maintaining network coverage.
Data Source
AI summary
Concepts and technologies directed to agile transport for background traffic in cellular networks are disclosed herein. In various aspects, a system can include a processor and memory storing instructions that, upon execution, cause performance of operations. The operations can include determining a capacity of a communication path that communicatively couples a user equipment to a radio access network cell site. The operations can include identifying, from the radio access network cell site, a queue that is constructed for the user equipment. The operations can include assembling a plurality of probe burst packet sets from a background traffic flow. The operations can include probing the communication path for spare capacity using the plurality of probe burst packet sets and delivering the background traffic flow to the user equipment using the spare capacity while the communication path is not busy.