Granted Patent B2

US 10,230,610 · App. 14/907,655 · Granted Mar 12, 2019

Abstract

Claims (66)

1. A method for estimating throughput between communication devices, the method comprising:

determining a maximum bottleneck throughput of a communication link between a first communication device and a third communication device, wherein the communication link between the first and third communication devices applies a common access network;

determining a Round Trip Time (RTT) between the first and second communication devices;

transmitting a packet by applying User Datagram Protocol (UDP) from the third communication device to the first communication device;

measuring a packet loss rate associated with the transmitted packet by monitoring sequence number of the packet; and

translating a measured a packet loss rate to a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) throughput according to the maximum bottleneck throughput and the RTT.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprises measuring a packet arrival jitter associated with the transmitted packet by monitoring arrival time stamps.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the packet loss rate is associated with packets in a transport layer.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the communication link includes one of a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) link and a Wi-Fi link.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising attributing a low throughput event to problems in the Wi-Fi link when both a packet loss and the packet arrival jitter are detected.

6. The method of claim 3 further comprises:

attributing a low throughput event to a packet loss associated with the DSL link when packets are lost consecutively for more than a predetermined time.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein measuring the packet loss rate further comprises:

monitoring one or more of a network load, an access network layer error count, or a physical layer noise counter; and

providing a confidence of the measured packet loss rate according to results of the monitoring.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein translating the measured packet loss rate to TCP throughput further comprises:

reading the confidence of the measured packet loss rate;

outputting possible range of TCP throughput corresponding to the confidence; and

outputting measurement failure message if the confidence is lower than a predetermined threshold.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein measuring the packet loss rate further comprises:

comparing upstream and downstream packet loss rates to determine the packet loss rate associated with packets in the common access network.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the RTT comprises executing a ping command.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the RTT comprises:

identifying a list of servers frequented by a user of the first communication device; and

measuring the RTT for each of the identified list of servers.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communication link is a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) link.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first, second, and third communication devices comprise at least one of:

an access point (AP);

a base station;

a wireless smartphone device;

a wireless LAN device;

an access gateway;

a router,

a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) performance enhancement device;

a DSL Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) modem;

a cable CPE modem;

an in-home powerline device;

a Home Phoneline Network Alliance (HPNA) based device;

an in-home coax distribution device;

a G.hn (Global Home Networking Standard) compatible device;

an in-home metering communication device;

an in-home appliance communicatively interfaced with the LAN;

a wireless femtocell base station;

a wireless Wi-Fi compatible base station;

a wireless mobile device repeater;

a wireless mobile device base station;

nodes within an ad-hoc/mesh network;

a set-top box (STB)/set-top unit (STU) customer electronics device;

an Internet Protocol (IP) enabled television;

an IP enabled media player;

an IP enabled gaming console;

an Ethernet gateway;

a computing device connected to the LAN;

an Ethernet connected computer peripheral device;

an Ethernet connected router;

an Ethernet connected wireless bridge;

an Ethernet connected network bridge;

an Ethernet connected network switch; or

a server.

14. A machine executable storage medium having machine executable instructions that when executed cause a machine to perform a method for estimating throughput between communication devices, the method comprising:

determining a maximum bottleneck throughput of a communication link between a first communication device and a third communication device, wherein the communication link between the first and third communication devices applies a common access network;

determining a Round Trip Time (RTT) between the first and second communication devices;

transmitting a packet by applying User Datagram Protocol (UDP) from the third communication device to the first communication device;

measuring packet loss rate associated with the transmitted packet by monitoring sequence number of the packet; and

translating a measured packet loss rate to Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) throughput according to the maximum bottleneck throughput and the RTT.

15. The machine executable storage medium of claim 14 , having machine executable instructions that when executed cause the machine to perform a method which comprises measuring a packet arrival jitter associated with the transmitted packet by monitoring the arrival time stamps.

Assignments (7)