Patent ID: 8477635
Filing Date: 2013-07-02
Classification: H04B,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for multicasting over a communications system having a communications path between a server side of the communications system and a plurality of clients, the communications path comprising a shared forward link over which bandwidth resources are shared during a multicast communication, the method comprising: intercepting a data block at the server side of the communications system, the data block comprising a header portion and a content portion and being communicated to a requesting client over the communications path; updating a client usage model to indicate that the data block is being communicated to the requesting client, the client usage model being configured to represent which data blocks have been previously communicated and to which clients of the communications system the data blocks have been previously communicated; generating a user correlation model by calculating correlations between the data blocks communicated to the requesting client and the data blocks communicated to other clients of the communications system according to the client usage model; determining whether to multicast the data block by determining, according to the user correlation model, whether a correlation between the requesting client and a non-requesting client of the communications system is above a threshold level; and multicasting the data block from the server side of the communications system to at least the requesting client over the communications path according to the user correlation model, wherein the data block is multicast from the server side of the communications system to at least the requesting user and the non-requesting client over the communications path when the correlation between the requesting client and the non-requesting client is above the threshold level.