Patent ID: 7733893

Claim:
A method of determining a target buffer level in a jitter-buffer in response to current network conditions of a packet data network, the jitter-buffer receiving data packets with digitized signal samples from the packet data network, the method including performing, at regular intervals, the steps of: logging, for a most recent received packet, a packet inter-arrival time defined as a time elapsed since a previous packet was received; updating, in response to the logging step, a probability mass function reflecting packet inter-arrival times; using the updated probability mass function by a receiver having a control logic means to define an expected duration of an empty jitter buffer for an arbitrary buffer level; providing a cost function as a function of the expected duration of an empty buffer at the arbitrary buffer level and a jitter buffer delay at the same arbitrary buffer level, wherein a weighting factor is applied to the jitter buffer delay; and determining the target buffer level as the jitter buffer level which minimizes the cost function.