Patent ID: 7944872

Claim:
A method for determining a preferred routing path for communicating source data from a data source to a data terminal over a network having a plurality of routing path options, the method comprising: determining a first routing path option, the first routing path option comprising a first set of communication links, wherein the data source and the data terminal are communicatively coupled via the first routing path option over the first set of communication links; determining a second routing path option, the second routing path option comprising a second set of communication links, wherein the data source and the data terminal are communicatively coupled via the second routing path option over the second set of communication links, and wherein the second set of communication links is at least partially different from the first set of communication links; receiving a source dataset at a network node, wherein the source dataset comprises at least a portion of the source data, and the network node is in operative communication with at least one of the first set of communication links and at least one of the second set of communication links; determining a hierarchical encoding scheme for pre-coding the transmission to generate at least one set of representation data; generating a first routing path profile by evaluating the first routing path option as a function of a routing metric relating to the hierarchical encoding scheme; generating a second routing path profile by evaluating the second routing path option as a function of the routing metric; determining a preferred routing path for routing at least a portion of the source dataset by comparing the first routing path profile and the second routing path profile; generating a transmission comprising applying the hierarchical encoding scheme to the source dataset to generate the at least one set of representation data; and routing the transmission over the preferred routing path.