Cisco Technology, Inc.

Mark W Litwack

Feisal Y Daruwalla

James R Forster

A method and system for correcting a congestion condition within a network, the method including notifying the sender and receiver of a multimedia data flow or flows that the multimedia data flows have been dropped due to the presence of the congestion condition. The method including the steps of determining at least one multimedia data flow that will be dropped to relieve the congestion condition; constructing notification messages for the source and destination of the dropped flows; and sending the notification message to the source and destination of the dropped multimedia data flows.

Multimedia data flow dropping with notification

The present invention introduces a congestion control mechanism for constant bit rate (CBR) multimedia data flows in cable operator IP networks. A flow drop method within a congestion control unit of the present invention chooses a subset of multimedia data flows to drop, in whole, to alleviate a congestion condition. After the congestion condition is detected and the congestion control unit begins dropping multimedia data flows, the remaining multimedia data flows are no longer degraded for the end user, as compared to conventional congestion management systems.

Multimedia data flow dropping

A technique is provided for managing VPN packet flows over shared access data networks. Each node in the shared access network typically has an identifier or ID associated with it which is used at a Head End of the shared access network to uniquely identify that particular node from the other nodes in the network. According to the technique of the present invention, the node ID may be used at the Head End of the network to identify not only the corresponding node, but also to identify any virtual private networks (VPNs) of which the corresponding node is a member. Using the technique of the present invention, nodes which are members of the same VPN within a shared access network may exchange packets in a manner which does not require the packets to be routed outside the shared access network.

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West Chester, PA, United States of America

Mark W Litwack