Apparatus and method for optimizing power consumption by traffic shaping in a transmission network

摘要

An apparatus and method for traffic shaping in a packet-switched network including a plurality of traffic classes is described. Each traffic class has an associated packet delay constraint. The method comprises the controlling a packet transmitter to enter a sleep mode, receiving a packet belonging to a particular traffic class from an incoming connection, determining an arrival time of the received packet, and adding the packet to a queue, and calculating a transmission time for the received packet, the transmission time representing the maximum time before the packet must be transmitted in order to respect the packet delay constraint of the traffic class to which the packet belongs. The method also includes the steps of setting a transmission timer to the value of the difference between the calculated transmission time and the arrival time if the transmission timer has not previously been set or if the sum of a current value of the transmission timer and the arrival time is larger than the calculated transmission time, and repeating the above steps until the transmission timer expires or until the number of packets in the queue reaches a given threshold. The method also includes controlling the packet transmitter to exit the sleep mode, and transmitting the packets in the queue.