Patent ID: 7643417

Claim:
A method of controlling the rate of data transmission from a source of data to a user via a communications link, wherein processing means are provided to generate a signal representing a rate request which will be used in determining the rate at which data will be transmitted from the source to the user, said processing means generating the signal by: obtaining a congestion charge on said communications link, selecting a value indicative of the user's willingness to pay for a given transmission data rate, determining the rate to be requested using the following iterative equation: x n+1 =x n +delta*kappa*x n ξ (w−x n *μ) where x n is the data transmission rate (bits per second) as calculated at an nth iteration; and x n+1 is the rate to be determined; x n *μ is the charge to the user indicative of amount of congestion and is the product of x n and congestion charge μ; w is the willingness to pay; delta is the time elapsed between two iterations; kappa is a constant gain parameter; and ξ (xi) is a reactivity parameter which varies during the data transmission to control the speed with which said rate requests are adapted in response to changing congestion conditions as a function of the indication of a difference between the user's willingness to pay and a congestion cost which is the product of congestion charge and a previously determined data transmission rate, said difference being weighted by a variable parameter, the processing means thereafter communicating the signal to the source of data and the rate of the data transmission from the data source to the user then being controlled on the basis of the signal.