Multi-radio communication between wireless devices
View Patent ↗In various embodiments, two wireless communication devices may communicate with each other using multiple protocols, by dividing the data to be communicated into multiple portions, and using each protocol to communicate different portions. The different protocols may be used simultaneously or concurrently. This multi-protocol technique may be used in several different ways to provide different types of advantages in wireless communications.
1. A method, comprising:
determining data to be communicated with a wireless device;
separating the data into multiple parts;
communicating a first part with the wireless device over a first wireless protocol; and
communicating a second part with the wireless device over a second wireless protocol different than the first wireless protocol,
wherein the communicating comprises transmitting a first portion of data over the first protocol and a second portion of the data over the second protocol, monitoring conditions for both the first and second protocols, and reallocating the data to the first and second protocols in a different proportion, as a result of the monitoring, before transmitting more data over the first and second protocols.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the first and second protocols are selected from a list of wireless protocols consisting of WiFi, WiMax, LTE, and Bluetooth.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein said communicating the first part is performed simultaneously with said communicating the second part.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein said communicating the first part is performed concurrently with said communicating the second part.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein said communicating comprises switching between the first and second protocols.
6. The method of claim 5 , wherein said switching comprises switching to the protocol that has more available capacity.
7. The method of claim 5 , wherein said switching comprises switching to the protocol that has higher quality.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein said communicating comprises communicating particular data over the first protocol and communicating the same particular data again over the second protocol.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein said communicating comprises transmitting data for a first resolution over the first protocol and transmitting additional data for a higher resolution over the second protocol.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein said communicating comprises communicating content over the first protocol and communicating control information for the content over a second protocol.
11. An apparatus, comprising
a first device having a processor, a memory, and a radio, the first device to:
communicate data wirelessly with a second device, the data having first and second parts; and
communicate the first part with a first protocol and communicate the second part with a second protocol different than the first protocol,
wherein the first and second parts of the data are associated with a single application
wherein the communicating is to comprise transmitting a first portion of data over the first protocol and a second portion of the data over the second protocol, monitoring conditions for both the first and second protocols, and reallocating the data to the first and second protocols in a different proportion, in response to results of the monitoring, before transmitting more data over the first and second protocols.
12. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein:
the first protocol is a contention-based protocol and the second protocol is a scheduled protocol;
the contention-based protocol is to be given a higher priority than the scheduled protocol, and the scheduled communication is to be scheduled around the contention-based communication.
13. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein said communicating the first part is to be performed simultaneously with said communicating the second part.
14. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein said communicating the first part is to be performed concurrently with said communicating the second part.
15. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein said communicating is to comprise switching between the first and second protocols.
16. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein said switching is to comprise switching to the protocol that has more available capacity.
17. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein said switching is to comprise switching to the protocol that has higher quality.
18. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein said communicating is to comprise communicating particular data over the first protocol and communicating the same particular data over the second protocol.
19. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein said communicating is to comprise transmitting encoded video at a first resolution over the first protocol and transmitting additional resolution bits for the encoded video over the second protocol.
20. The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein said communicating is to comprise communicating content over the first protocol and communicating control information for the content over a second protocol.
21. An article comprising
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that contains instructions, which when executed by one or more processors result in performing operations comprising:
determining data to be communicated with a wireless device;
separating the data into multiple parts;
communicating a first part with the wireless device over a first wireless protocol; and
communicating a second part with the wireless device over a second wireless protocol different than the first wireless protocol
wherein the communicating comprises transmitting a first portion of data over the first protocol and a second portion of the data over the second protocol, monitoring conditions for both the first and second protocols, and reallocating the data to the first and second protocols in a different proportion, as a result of the monitoring, before transmitting more data over the first and second protocols.
22. The article of claim 21 , wherein said separating takes place at a MAC layer.
23. The article of claim 21 , wherein said separating takes place at a PHY layer.