The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 28, 2025
Filed:
Jun. 09, 2021
British Telecommunications Public Limited Company, London, GB;
BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY, London, GB;
Abstract
A method of managing a network for delivering content to a client device, where content segments are delivered to a proxy in a multicast group, before delivery from the proxy to the client device over unicast. The proxy intermittently leaves the multicast group to probe the network by making unicast request for content segments, receiving those segments over unicast from the content server and forwarding those segments onto the client device. This allows the client device to determine the maximum throughput between the content server and the client device via the proxy, and thus the client device can use its adaptive bit rate algorithms to determine if the network can support a switch to a higher bit rate stream, and request a higher bit rate stream accordingly. The higher bit rate stream can be serviced by the proxy joining or establishing a suitable multicast group.