Patent ID: 8543685
Filing Date: 2013-09-24
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A data communications system comprising: at least one controller device configured to communicate with a plurality of client devices, each client device being capable of establishing a data communication link with the controller device; wherein the controller device is configured to: determine a usage based multiplier value for each client device based on a data usage associated with a data communication link of each client, the data usage corresponding to an amount of data transferred using a given data communication link for each client device for a given period of time; determine a data usage for the data communication link for each client during a given time period; compare the determined data usage associated with the data communication link of at least one of the plurality of client devices with a first usage threshold and with a second usage threshold, the first usage threshold being a different value than the second usage threshold; modify the usage based multiplier value of the at least one client device based on a result of the comparison with the first usage threshold and the second usage threshold; apply a rate limiting scheme based on the modified usage based multiplier value if a congestion is detected in one or more of the data communication links, the rate limiting scheme including adjusting an allocation of available bandwidth to the client devices according to the usage based multiplier values of the client devices; determine if spare bandwidth exists on the data communication links after the rate limiting scheme has been applied, the spare bandwidth being extra bandwidth that is made available as a result of applying the rate limiting scheme; and allocate the spare bandwidth to one or more of the client devices, wherein the allocating the spare bandwidth includes: