Viasat, Inc.

Schedulers that allocate resource grants on a slot-by-slot basis within a scheduling epoch or frame can create a front-loading effect where allocations occur more frequently in slots earlier in frames. To address these and other issues, systems and methods are disclosed for scheduling resource grants in a network to improve network transmit power profiles. For example, a scheduler is configured to randomize the order of slots in a scheduling epoch or frame, with different randomizations for different schedulers, to more evenly distribute slots with resource grant allocations to prevent or reduce a front-loading effect. As another example, the scheduler is configured to randomize start times of resource blocks within a slot to prevent or reduce the front-loading effect.

Selection of a variant of a media object for delivery from a service provider to a user system using a delivery utility of available variants. The variants may each use different amounts of network resources. The delivery utility may be based on a network resource usage (e.g., a weighted network resource usage such as a provisioning cost value). The network resource usage may represent a cost to the service provider to transmit the variant. The delivery utility calculation may also be based on a predicted quality of experience for a variant. This may include a weighted probability of the quality of experience related to an effect of an adverse experience resulting from delivery of the variant (e.g., a churn cost value). The use of the delivery utility calculation may efficiently use communication network infrastructure to improve user quality of experience, server more users using given networking resources, or both.

Technologies are disclosed that provide for parallel communication paths across a plurality of transport links in a communications network, such as a tactical network. Parallel communication can be provided using a performance enhancing proxy layered with parallel tunnels. Multiple network sessions can be established in parallel to enable transmission of connection-oriented network traffic over the parallel tunnels. Various session parameters can be adjusted to address issues associated with transmitting connection-oriented network traffic over parallel transport links with high latency and/or significant differences in latency.

Methods, systems, and devices for providing in-flight communication sessions. In some examples, a communication session delivery system may provide network access service or other types of content once a passenger has completed a brand interaction. The brand interaction may be any number of options that a brand partner may require in exchange for access to content. The communication session delivery system may choose from a plurality of reward offers and then display the chosen offers to a passenger. The chosen offers may be selected based on profile information of a passenger and characteristics targeted by a brand partner. The passenger may then choose an offer and perform the required brand interaction. Once the brand interaction has been verified, the passenger may receive the reward associated with the offer.

Technologies are disclosed that provide for parallel communication paths across a plurality of transport links in a communications network, such as a tactical network. Parallel communication can be provided using parallel tunnels and parallel subflows. Individual packets can be directed along individual transport links based at least in part on the transport layer protocol associated with the packet. For network traffic sent using the transport control protocol (TCP), the network traffic can be divided into subflows with individual subflows being directed along individual transport links (e.g., using MPTCP). For network traffic sent using the user datagram protocol (UDP), the network traffic can be directed along individual tunnels established on respective transport links using virtual private network (VPN) technology over parallel communication paths (e.g., a multipath virtual private network (MPVPN)).

Approaches are described for providing quality of experience (QoE) driven in-transport communications services. For example, in-transit communications services are provided over a network to content consumption devices on one or more transport craft. During a measurement window, delivery of the in-transit communications services can be measured to obtain network-level delivery (NLD) measurements, and consumption of the in-transit communications services by one or more of the content consumption devices can be measured to obtain customer-level consumption (CLC) measurements. The NLD and CLC measurements can be used to compute a QoE score that indicates a delivered quality of service as perceived by one or more passengers of the one or more transport craft. The QoE score can be used to update stored service level data. The update can cause generation of one or more service level triggers, which can trigger automatic remedial action to address QoE-related conditions.

Embodiments seek to protect privacy of potentially sensitive client resources in web transactions using crowd-disambiguation. Crowd-disambiguation machines can aggregate information about resources from multiple clients as resource fingerprints, and can use the fingerprints to provide crowd-sourced services in a privacy-protected manner. For example, embodiments can communicate a resource fingerprint as a fully ambiguated resource instance (FARI) and a partially disambiguated resource instance (PDRI). When one (or few) clients communicates the resource fingerprint, the identity of the resource remains obfuscated from the crowd-disambiguation machine. As more clients communicate fingerprints for the same resource (e.g., identified by the matching FARIs), respective, differently generated PDRIs of those fingerprints enable the crowd-disambiguation machine to resolve further portions of the resource, ultimately permitting the resource to be revealed and considered non-private (e.g., for use in hint generation or other crowd-sourced services).

Methods, systems, and devices are described for providing network access services to mobile users via multi-user network access terminals over a multi-beam satellite system. Quality-of-service (QoS) is controlled for the mobile devices at a per-user level according to user-specific traffic policies. Mobile users may be provisioned on the satellite system according to a set of traffic policies based on their service level agreement (SLA). System resources of the satellite may be allocated to mobile users based on the demand of each mobile user and the set of traffic polices associated with each mobile user, regardless of which multi-user network access terminal is used to access the system. Dynamic multiplexing of traffic from fixed terminals and mobile users on the same satellite beam can take advantage of statistical multiplexing of large numbers of users and on different usage patterns between fixed terminals and mobile users.

Schedulers that allocate resource grants on a slot-by-slot basis within a scheduling epoch or frame can create a front-loading effect where allocations occur more frequently in slots earlier in frames. To address these and other issues, systems and methods are disclosed for scheduling resource grants in a network to improve network transmit power profiles. For example, a scheduler is configured to randomize the order of slots in a scheduling epoch or frame, with different randomizations for different schedulers, to more evenly distribute slots with resource grant allocations to prevent or reduce a front-loading effect. As another example, the scheduler is configured to randomize start times of resource blocks within a slot to prevent or reduce the front-loading effect.

Methods, apparatus, and systems manage use of shared network resources among subscribers to a data communication service. In some implementations, a first metric is computed representing a subscriber's use of the shared network resources. A second metric may also be computed that represents the amount of network congestion of the shared network resources. Data derived from the first metric and the second metric may then be presented to the subscriber. The data may be transmitted to the subscriber over a network and/or the data may be displayed to the subscriber on an electronic display.