US 12,113,842 B2
Content delivery
Rory Turnbull, London (GB); Timothy Stevens, London (GB); and Stephen Appleby, London (GB)
Assigned to BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS public limited company, London (GB)
Appl. No. 18/257,558
Filed by BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY, London (GB)
PCT Filed Dec. 3, 2021, PCT No. PCT/EP2021/084263
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Jun. 14, 2023,
PCT Pub. No. WO2022/128548, PCT Pub. Date Jun. 23, 2022.
Claims priority of application No. 2020129 (GB), filed on Dec. 18, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2024/0114065 A1, Apr. 4, 2024
Int. Cl. H04L 65/611 (2022.01); H04L 43/0888 (2022.01); H04L 65/1069 (2022.01); H04L 65/612 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 65/611 (2022.05) [H04L 43/0888 (2013.01); H04L 65/1069 (2013.01); H04L 65/612 (2022.05)] 18 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of managing content delivery over a network to a client device, said content comprising a sequence of segments and wherein each of the segments is encoded at a plurality of bit rates, said method comprising:
i) receiving at a first network element one or more segments encoded at a first bit rate over multicast sent from a content server, and storing the one or more segments encoded at the first bit rate at the first network element, wherein the plurality of segments encoded at a first bit rate are received at a multicast reception rate;
ii) sending a request for data from the first network element to the content server over unicast, and receiving the requested data over unicast at the first network element at a unicast reception rate;
iii) determining a network throughput as the sum of the multicast reception rate and the unicast reception rate;
iv) transmitting one or more stored segments from the first network element to the client device over unicast at a transmission rate based on the determined network throughput.