Request modification for transparent capacity management in a carrier network

摘要

Some embodiments provide a capacity management agent that modifies content requests to adjust bandwidth consumption when streaming requested content from a content provider to a requesting user. The modifications include modifying a URL or header information of the request. The agent performs a process that receives a request for content of a content provider. The process identifies a parameter of the carrier network and modifies the request when the parameter satisfies a threshold. The process passes the request to the content provider and the content provider provides content that consumes a first set of resources in response to an unmodified request and a second set of resources in response to a modified request. When the parameter identifies congestion, the first set of resources is greater than the second set of resources. When the condition parameter identifies underutilization, the first set of resources is less than the second set of resources.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
intercepting a request for content submitted by a user device to a particular destination prior to said request reaching the particular destination, wherein the request identifies a first encoding of the content; optimizing the request according to at least one of (i) capabilities of the user device and (ii) network usage, wherein said optimizing comprises modifying the request to identify a second encoding of the content in place of the first encoding; and forwarding the request identifying the second encoding to the particular destination, wherein the particular destination responds to the request by providing the second encoding of the content to the user device.