Patent ID: 7191246

Claim:
A method of selecting a data transmission rate for a network of data receivers having a plurality of local reception bandwidths, the method comprising the steps of: (a) receiving a report of said local reception bandwidth from each of a plurality of said data receivers; (b) identifying a plurality of bandwidth clusters from said reports of local reception bandwidth using an iterative procedure comprising the steps of: (i) assigning each of said reported local reception bandwidths to a respective one of said plurality of bandwidth clusters that has a mean bandwidth nearer to the assigned reported local reception bandwidth than other of said plurality of bandwidth clusters; (ii) updating respective mean bandwidths of the plurality of bandwidth clusters following the assignment of a local reception bandwidth to one of said plurality of bandwidth clusters; and (iii) repeating steps (i) and (ii) until there is a convergence and no local reception bandwidth is assigned to a different cluster following an update of a mean bandwidth of one of said plurality of bandwidth clusters; and (c) selecting a data transmission rate that minimizes a loss of data for a receiver reporting a minimum bandwidth included in a bandwidth cluster.