Patent ID: 7401155

Claim:
A method of retrieving data over a network at a target bandwidth, B T , comprising: (1) transmitting a request for data to a server over the network; (2) receiving the data from the server over the network; (3) calculating a wait time based on the target bandwidth and an aggregate bytes count, bytes AGG , wherein bytes AGG is an aggregate number of bytes received from the server, and wherein step (3) includes (A) determining a start time, T START , based on the request for data of step (1), (B) incrementing the aggregate bytes count, bytes AGG , by the number of bytes received in step (2), (C) determining a current time, T NOW , and (D) calculating the wait time according to the equation wait time=(bytes AGG )/ B T −( T NOW −T START ); (4) waiting the calculated wait time; (5) transmitting a request for additional data to the server over the network after step (4); and (6) receiving the additional data from the server over the network.