Cisco Technology, Inc.

Bruce Albert Thompson

Kent Kinchu Leung

Jayaraman R Iyer

Flemming Andreasen

Xiaomei Liu

David R Oran

Wojciech Dec

Francois Le Faucheur

Sangeeta Ramakrishnan

John William Evans

Alex Tweedly

Ashok Bhaskar

A method is provided and may include receiving a request for a network content delivery service from an access device; directing the access device to a network service provider for authentication for the network content delivery service; receiving a network authorization token from the access device, where the network authorization token is associated with the access device; obtaining a network access token from the network service provider; and binding the network access token to a content access token.

Content service on demand

Methods and apparatus for enabling a layer 2 node associated with an open systems interconnection (OSI) reference model to perform resource reservation protocol (RSVP) processing are disclosed. According to one aspect of the present invention a layer 2 device associated with an OSI reference model includes a first interface, a processing arrangement, and a second interface. The first interface intercepts a message associated with a on-path signaling protocol for at least one selected from a group including resource reservation and admission control at a layer above layer 2. The processing arrangement processes the message, and the second interface sends the message.

Snooping of on-path IP reservation protocols for layer 2 nodes

A method of delivering a variable bit rate (VBR) media stream in near real time includes identifying a selected media asset to be streamed to a media receiver, receiving an available access bandwidth at which the media receiver can receive data, and initiating a session setup for delivery of the selected media asset. The method further includes calculating a delay in decoding a media stream associated with the selected media asset at the media receiver based on the available access bandwidth, and a calculated required minimum transmission rate of a VBR media stream representative of the selected media asset. The method further includes transmitting the selected media asset at the required minimum transmission rate of the VBR media stream and providing the calculated delay to the media receiver such that the media receiver begins decoding the media stream in accordance with the calculated delay.

Near real time delivery of variable bit rate media streams

In one embodiment, a network session is established for transmitting a media stream. The media stream is encoded into a first set of media stream packets and the first set of media stream packets transmitted according to the established network session. The media stream is also encoded into a second set of retransmission-based repair packets and used as a second redundant copy of the media stream. The second set of retransmission packets are transmitted regardless of receiving any indication of lost or dropped packets during the network session.

Unified transmission scheme for media stream redundancy

The present invention relates generally to a system for managing bandwidth usage in a content delivery system such as a Video on Demand (VOD) network. Specifically, an Edge Resource Manager (ERM) makes use of a number of policies to optimally select a transmission device such as a Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) device. The policies aid in providing efficient use of the transmission devices particularly when a number of different transmission rates for different media are employed.

System and method for edge resource management

A method for transporting real-time data such as voice over a packet-based infrastructure, and a switch for use with that method, are disclosed. In this method, datagrams from multiple data streams are packaged in a single tunnel packet for transport across a network to an intermediate switching point (switch). To reduce bandwidth, each datagram in the tunnel packet (e.g., tunneled datagram) can be sent in a compressed-header format identified by a context identifier (CID) for its data stream. The switch saves context state for each tunnel and CID it is receiving packets for. The switch deaggregates received tunnel packets into tunneled datagrams and associates each datagram with its context state. Based on the destination indicated in its context state, each datagram it re-aggregated in an outgoing tunnel packet bound for a next switch or the destination endpoint itself.

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Saratoga, CA, United States of America

Bruce Albert Thompson