Search - Iowa State University Research Foundation, Inc.

Technology Details

Bandwidth Recycling for More Efficient Data Transmission

Reference:

3804

Summary:

Iowa State University researchers have developed scheduling algorithms to employ unused bandwidth to improve broadband network efficiency.

Description:

The explosion in the use of the Internet and the need to transfer multimedia data has lead to increasing requirements being placed on communications networks. Bandwidth, which can be a limited and valuable resource, must be managed efficiently to provide high quality services to users (QoS). A variety of approaches have been used to meet the demands for QoS while simultaneously providing diversified traffic services, including reservation protocols, traffic shaping, scheduling algorithms, and congestion avoidance. However, most of these approaches require predicting the amount of incoming traffic, which is difficult to do since video streaming, VoIP, etc. generate data at variable rates. To provide a high QoS, subscriber stations are required to request the needed bandwidth from base stations prior to any transmission of data; subscriber stations often keep reserved bandwidth—even when it is more than the data transmitted—and thus some bandwidth may be wasted. To overcome this drawback, ISU researchers have developed a network protocol to employ unused bandwidth to improve network efficiency through bandwidth recycling. This approach utilizes scheduling algorithms to increase the probability of successful recycling. Since bandwidth recycling does not change the existing bandwidth reservation, it maintains the QoS guarantee and does not introduce any extra delay in data transmission. In addition, simulation results have demonstrated the potential for bandwidth recycling to improve network throughput by 40%. This technology has utility for any 4G broadband wireless network.

Advantage:

Accurate (obviates the need for traffic prediction)
Efficient (wasted bandwidth can be utilized immediately to improve network throughput)
Economical (bandwidth recycling introduces limited overhead)
Versatile (enhances QoS for both WiMax and LTE networks)

Application:

Communications networks

Stage:

Simulation results demonstrate that bandwidth recycling can improve network throughput by 40% and decrease data latency, and ISU is seeking partners interested in commercializing this technology.

References:

1: “Bandwidth Recycling in IEEE 802.16 Networks”, David Chuck and J. Morris Chang, 2010, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing 9: 1451-1464.

Supporting Documents: