Patent ID: 8019886

Claim:
A networked computing system for delivering digital data content, the networked computing system comprising: a network data sender device; user equipment; a network link monitor; a data transfer agent; and a data communications network facilitating data communications amongst all devices of the networked computing system, wherein the networked computing system is configured to: determine a throughput capacity for a network communication link extending from the data sender device to the user equipment; detect at least one network communications metric to thereby determine a content delivery throughput for delivering the digital data content from the data sender device to the user equipment; determining a network communications state and, if the network communications state indicates that the content delivery throughput is less than the throughput capacity, determine whether the diminished content delivery throughput, is caused by network congestion or underperformance of a network element in the network communication link extending from the data sender device to the user equipment; and cause the data sender device to throttle a transmission rate for delivering the digital data content if the diminished content delivery throughput is caused by network congestion and permitting the user equipment to control the delivery rate and thereby transfer data as fast as the network communication link will allow without throttling the transmission rate if the diminished content delivery throughput is not caused by network congestion.