Patent ID: 7787403

Claim:
An apparatus for receiving data transmission from a transmitting device through a network, the apparatus comprising: a network interface card (NIC) configured to communicatively couple to the network, the NIC including an active mode associated with receipt of data transmission and a sleep mode not associated with receipt of data transmission; and a device coupled to the NIC, the device being resident in the apparatus and configured to determine a data consumption rate of the apparatus to consume data received in the active model, the data being consumed at least in part while the NIC is in the sleep mode; determine a duty cycle of the NIC between active and sleep mode and a data transmission rate to be used by the transmitting device, the duty cycle based at least in part on the determined data consumption rate, so that during the sleep mode of the duty cycle the apparatus' consumption of the received data is continuous; request the transmitting device to transmit further data to be consumed by the apparatus; and cause the NIC to operate according to the duty cycle.