Broadcast overlay protocol method and system

摘要

A transmission method wherein a broadcast stream is superimposed over a set of one or more primary data streams by embedding delay-insensitive data packets of the broadcast stream during periods of inactivity in each primary data stream. The delay-insensitive data packets comprising the broadcast stream may be transmitted out-of-sequence relative to each other and out-of-band relative to the primary data stream. At least some of the delay-insensitive data packets are assigned acceptable error-tolerance levels, and a given delay-insensitive data packet has an optimum size and frequency of retransmission determined by a statistical decomposition of a data-time behavior of the primary data stream. The method has particular applicability in providing broadcast content (e.g., advertising streams) to World Wide Web (WWW) clients connected to an Internet service provider (ISP).