Gateway Bandwidth Allocation for Adaptive Streaming
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Solution Overview
Problem
Streaming media content consumption on limited bandwidth networks, such as satellite and mobile telephone connections, leads to bandwidth overload and reduced video quality due to simultaneous requests from multiple users.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a gateway device that recognizes simultaneous requests for the same content across multiple nodes and allocates shared bandwidth, allowing for higher quality content delivery by consolidating duplicate unicast transmissions into a single broadcast accessible to all nodes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If multiple users simultaneously stream content over limited bandwidth networks, then content delivery is enabled, but bandwidth overload occurs and video quality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple unicast content streams into a single broadcast stream when multiple users request the same content simultaneously. The gateway device detects duplicate requests and consolidates them, allowing one content transmission to serve multiple users instead of transmitting separate copies to each user, thereby reducing overall bandwidth consumption while maintaining content delivery efficiency
2Reliability
If separate unicast transmissions are made to each user, then individual content delivery is ensured, but network congestion increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges redundant unicast transmissions into broadcast transmissions. When the gateway detects that multiple users are requesting the same content, it switches from sending separate unicast streams to a single broadcast stream that all requesting users can receive, thereby reducing network traffic and congestion while maintaining reliable content delivery to all users
3Adaptability or versatility
If bandwidth is allocated to each user individually, then user-specific content delivery is achieved, but total bandwidth utilization is inefficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements bandwidth sharing by merging multiple unicast connections into broadcast connections for commonly requested content. This allows the system to maintain user-specific content delivery capability when needed while significantly improving overall bandwidth utilization efficiency by allowing multiple users to share the same bandwidth resource when accessing identical content simultaneously
Solution Approach 2:
The gateway dynamically adjusts the transmission mode between unicast and broadcast based on real-time content requests. When content requests vary among users, the system uses unicast for individual delivery; when multiple users request the same content, the system switches to broadcast mode to optimize bandwidth utilization, making the system adaptable to different usage patterns
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, methods and devices provide efficient bandwidth allocation on a satellite, mobile telephone or other data connection by allowing nodes to share bandwidth for commonly-requested data. A transmission center, uplink or other gateway suitably recognizes when content requests from multiple different nodes are simultaneously requesting delivery of the same content. When the same content is recognized, the gateway device allocates shared bandwidth on the data transmission link for the requested content that is accessible to both the first and second nodes.