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:
Apr. 02, 2013
Filed:
Feb. 26, 2010
Ranveer Chandra, Kirkland, WA (US);
Sandeep P. Karanth, Bangalore, IN;
Thomas Moscibroda, Redmond, WA (US);
Vishnu Navda, Bangalore, IN;
Jitendra D. Padhye, Redmond, WA (US);
Ramachandran Ramjee, Bangalore, IN;
Lenin Ravindranath Sivalingam, Cambridge, MA (US);
Ranveer Chandra, Kirkland, WA (US);
Sandeep P. Karanth, Bangalore, IN;
Thomas Moscibroda, Redmond, WA (US);
Vishnu Navda, Bangalore, IN;
Jitendra D. Padhye, Redmond, WA (US);
Ramachandran Ramjee, Bangalore, IN;
Lenin Ravindranath Sivalingam, Cambridge, MA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A 'Wi-Fi Multicaster' provides a practical and efficient Wi-Fi multicast system for environments having potentially large numbers of Wi-Fi clients. Significantly, the Wi-Fi Multicaster does not require any changes to the 802.11 protocol, or to the underlying Wi-Fi infrastructure. In various embodiments, the Wi-Fi Multicaster uses pseudo-broadcast, and augments it with destination control, association control and optional proactive FEC (forward error correction) to improve multicast performance. More specifically, the Wi-Fi Multicaster system converts multicast packets to targeted unicast transmissions. To minimize the amount of airtime consumed, the Wi-Fi Multicaster uses destination control in combination with various algorithms for association control. Further, in various embodiments, the Wi-Fi Multicaster includes an adaptive, proactive FEC scheme to reduce overall packet losses. Finally, to overcome the challenges posed by encryption protocols such as 802.1x, the Wi-Fi Multicaster uses a 'virtual multicast interface' that allows clients to “share” a common key for each multicast.