Data flow control in WLAN radio connections for the impairment of internet telephony

1. A method for controlling the data flow in a radio link between a wireless local area network (WLAN) base station and a WLAN mobile station with the radio link having synchronous data traffic and asynchronous data traffic, comprising:

a) providing that the synchronous data traffic requires that delay times on the channel remain below a certain delay time threshold, and

b) reducing the data rate of the synchronous data traffic on the radio link for a time period at time intervals, in order to restrict the synchronous data traffic, wherein the reducing comprises deliberately delaying the data on the radio link by a delay time greater than the certain delay time threshold.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the method is carried out at the WLAN base station.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the time period of the data rate reduction at any given time is in each case shorter than the time interval at that time.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a) comprises:

a′) delay of the data on the radio link by a delay time, in particular a randomly selected delay time, at time intervals.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein a′) comprises:

a″) delay of the further-processing of data which is received at the landline network end, is assigned to the radio link and is temporarily stored in a buffer store, in particular a first-in first-out (FIFO) memory, which is located in the WLAN base station and is assigned to the radio link.

6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein a″) comprises:

suppression of the data output of the data which has been received at the landline end from the buffer store, in particular the FIFO memory, at times, corresponding to the delay time.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein the delay is added even if the WLAN base station is ready to transmit the data from the FIFO memory.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the time period or the delay time is in the range from 100 ms to 5 s.

9. The method according to claim 8 , wherein the time interval is in the range from 500 ms to 15 s.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the time period or the delay time and/or the time interval vary in time.

11. The method according to claim 1 , comprising:

b) checking of a user status of the WLAN mobile station with the result of the check from b) governing whether a) is carried out.

12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the synchronous data traffic is voice over internet protocol (VoIP) traffic.

13. An apparatus for controlling the data flow on a radio link between a wireless local area network (WLAN) base station and a WLAN mobile station, with the radio link having synchronous data traffic and asynchronous data traffic, the apparatus comprising:

means for providing that the synchronous data traffic requires that delay times on the channel remain below a certain delay time threshold, and

means for reducing the data rate of the synchronous data traffic for in each case one time period at time intervals, in order to restrict the synchronous data traffic, wherein the means for reducing includes means for deliberately delaying the data on the radio link by a delay time greater than the certain delay time threshold.

14. The apparatus according to claim 13 , wherein the means for reducing the data rate has a buffer store, in particular a first-in first-out (FIFO) memory, for temporary storage of received data or of data to be transmitted, and has a control signal, which is associated with the buffer store, for suppression of the data outputs from the buffer store at times.

15. The WLAN station, in particular a WLAN base station, having an apparatus according to claim 13 .