METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TIME-BASED DOWNLOAD CONTROL

摘要

A network transmitter schedules packets so that packets are transmitted to a host or group of hosts so as not to overload any particular part of the network. In an embodiment, the transmitter uses packet data structures with a schedule indication for packets placed in the queue (146a-c) so that an independently running adaptor (160) may know when to remove packets from the queue (146a-c) and transmit them. In an alternative embodiment, packets are scheduled by setting a future interrupt for transmitting a packet or group of packets. In a further embodiment, packets are placed in temporal sets where a temporal set is a group of packets that can be transmitted in succession without violating the bandwidth limitations of any network segment.