Multiplex communications – Data flow congestion prevention or control – Control of data admission to the network
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-07
2003-09-09
Cangialosi, Salvatore (Department: 2661)
Multiplex communications
Data flow congestion prevention or control
Control of data admission to the network
C370S468000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06618355
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to an information communication network utilizing a plurality of high bandwidth wireless links, and more particularly to providing tariffing based on actual use of the network for information communication by subscribers.
BACKGROUND
FIG. 1
illustrates a prior art solution for providing telephone and data services to a business or subscriber. A subscriber
126
is connected to a central office (CO)
115
using, for example, one 1.544 Mbps T
1
line connections
101
. The subscriber usually buys or leases this T
1
line from a telephone service provider company (telco), such as a regional bell operating company (RBOC), at a predetermined flat rate cost, such as $1,500 per month. A subscriber with communication requirements exceeding those serviceable by a single T
1
, whether such demand is an instantaneous bandwidth requirement sufficient to demand the temporary capacity of multiple T
1
connections or a continuous bandwidth requirement only slightly larger than a single T
1
, may purchase or lease multiple T
1
line connections, such as T
1
line connections
103
and
104
coupling subscriber
127
to CO
115
.
The central office may communicate signals to and from these connections, such as T
1
lines
101
-
104
, to/from a service provider or other point in the communication network, such as ISP (Internet service provider)
120
, through the point of presence (POP) connection
114
. The POP connection
114
is generally composed of one or at least a fewer number of T
1
lines than that existing between the central office and the subscribers coupled thereto, requiring the subscribers to share the bandwidth between the CO
15
and the POP
114
.
Accordingly, a drawback to this solution is that a subscriber, while paying for a T
1
line, is often not receiving the full T
1
throughput. Specifically, although the subscriber is provided T
1
service between the subscriber location and the CO, the CO to service provider connection may be concentrated to the point that any particular subscriber is unable to realize their purchased bandwidth through the signal path coupling the subscriber with a particular service provider.
Moreover, the subscribers, especially in the data communication associated with data processing systems, such as those often coupled to an ISP of the above example, often have large instantaneous bandwidth requirements surrounded by prolonged minimal or nominal bandwidth requirements. For example, a data processing system coupled to another data processing system through CO
115
may require the download of a significant amount of data for a particular task, followed by a period of processing the downloaded data substantially without communication through CO
115
. Accordingly, the connection provided between the subscriber and the CO may provide less bandwidth than desired for such instantaneous demand although a significant amount of bandwidth remains unutilized at other times. The subscribers are often forced to accept this solution due to their inability to afford the actual bandwidth utilized for bursts of information. Therefore, they accept the next closest constant bandwidth that is cost effective and provides tolerable communication speeds.
Similarly, where a subscriber has a relatively constant demand which exceeds the capacity of one or a combination of available links, i.e., requires 2 Mbps which is slightly more than the 1.544 Mbps available through a single T
1
connection, the subscriber is required to purchase or lease additional links to carry the overflow demand, such as a second T
1
connection to carry the remaining 0.456 Mbps, although the full capacity of this second link is not required. The subscribers are often forced to accept this solution because there is often no lesser increments of bandwidth available for purchase or lease to the subscriber. Therefore, they accept and pay for the next increment of offered bandwidth irrespective of the fact that only a fraction of this bandwidth may be needed and used.
In the above example of T
1
lines, even ignoring the bottle neck associated with the service provider's limited number of connections to the CO, the subscriber will only have approximately 1 Mbps available to him at any time due to the capacity of the T
1
line. This rate may be significantly slower than the data rate of the subscriber equipment (e.g., where a 100 Mbps user network is involved). The speed, for example, with which a web browser installed at a subscriber location can bring up a page is a function of the speed with which the received data is transmitted to the user location (i.e., the bits per second (bps)). Currently, to transmit a web page to a subscriber typically requires 17 Kbps of data to be moved to a subscriber's computer.
Obviously, increasing the bandwidth or pipe of the transmission line will increase the speed with which the data can be received (e.g., 17 Kbits of data transmitted over a 100 Mbit bandwidth is extremely fast as compared to 17 Kbits of data transmitted at 33 Kbps). However, as suggested above, purchasing additional bandwidth to service such needs is often cost prohibitive. The lack of economy in marginal increases in bandwidth is caused in part due to the practice of present telco's, or other provider's, tariffing schemes. Specifically, the tariffing schemes in common use typically cannot determine how much data is transmitted or received via the link and, thus, is not a measure of the actual bandwidth utilized by the subscriber.
For example, flat fee billing, also known as “all you can eat”, is a tariffing scheme where the fee the provider charges does not reflect the subscriber usage. Subscribers are billed a set amount each billing period, typically monthly. Examples of services using flat fee billing rates, in addition to the above example of purchased T
1
lines above, are local phone calling (residential) and dial-up (analog modem) Internet access. The flat fee billing scheme is simple for the service provider to implement and operate because it is architecture independent; the operator just prints a bill directly. In addition, flat fee billing is also easy for users to understand and to use in predicting what their service cost will be for any period.
However, flat fee billing creates several disadvantages for the network operators. For example, since the tariffing method does not differentiate between heavy users of the service and light users, low level users who increase their usage do not make any increased contribution to revenue while heavy users do not pay in proportion to their associated costs. Moreover, as there is no incremental cost to the subscribers, low level users may actually be incented to utilize more bandwidth than needed. Accordingly, this scheme tends to skew sales thrust to potentially light users. Further, the only way to increase revenue using flat fee billing is to enlarge the subscriber database.
Another common tariffing scheme for information communication links as described above is to monitor only the connection time, i.e., when the telephone is off hook and an information communication link is established, along with the type of service utilized (e.g., ISDN, dial tone), to determine a charge for the service provided. This tariffing scheme is sometimes referred to as “connect time” billing. According to this scheme, service providers accumulate information regarding the amount of time the subscriber is connected to the system. The connection time information is collected over a billing cycle period and the subscriber is billed in proportion to the amount of time they where connected to the service provider's network. Examples of services using connect time based billing rates are cellular (local calls) and business ISDN Internet access.
The connect time tariffing scheme overcomes many of the problems associated with the flat fee tariffing scheme. However, it should be noted that using the total connect time as a measure of the level of service, which cannot determine how much data is transmitt
Andrew Brian J.
Gulliford Philip C.
Cangialosi Salvatore
Carriercomm, Inc.
Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.
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