Patent ID: 7171482

Claim:
A method of managing bandwidth utilization during a communication session between a client system and a server system comprising: monitoring data exchanged between the client system and server system, the client system operating a first application and a second application; detecting client-side contention for available bandwidth between the first application and the second application; and reducing accessible bandwidth for the first application based on the client-side contention; wherein the client system and server system are in communication with each other over a communications network, wherein at least one of the actions of monitoring, detecting, and reducing are performed external to the client system, wherein the step of monitoring data exchanged between the client system and server system includes: accepting input from the server system, the input including a data value indicating a total amount of data exchanged between the server system and the client system during the communication session and further including a time value representing an amount of time that has elapsed since said monitoring began; and storing the input for processing; wherein the step of storing input from the server system repeatedly occurs at a user-defined interval, wherein the step of storing the input for processing further includes maintaining a set of inputs received from the server system, wherein the set of inputs have a maximum capacity of stored inputs, the stored inputs determined on a FIFO basis, and wherein the maximum capacity is 120 stored inputs.