Multicast packet reception reliability over Wi-Fi

摘要

To ensure that multicasts from access points sent in response to periodic beacons reach a variety of listening clients that may have longer sleep intervals than an interval between beacons, this disclosure describes systems, methods, and apparatus for multicasting bursts of frames where a burst number is selected so as to be equal to or greater than a range of common sleep intervals. Further, where multicast frames are re-multicast according to known protocols, the repeated bursts can be offset from the re-multicast start time suggested by the protocol, in order to increase a likelihood that clients with especially long sleep intervals receive the multicast frame.

主权项

1. A system configured to control multicasting, the system comprising:
a network interface configured to transmit a frame; a memory configured to store the frame and a burst number; a burst module in communication with the memory and the network interface and configured to cause a burst of multicasts of the frame from an access point, each one of the multicasts timed to occur between consecutive delivery traffic indication messages (DTIMs) sent from the access point, the number of multicasts in the burst equal to the burst number; and an offset module configured to cause repeated instances of the burst where consecutive instances of the burst are separated by an increasing offset, and wherein at least one of the clients has a sleep interval greater than or equal to the burst number.