Extending delay tolerance of mobile applications for optimizing mobile traffic management

Abstract

Systems and methods for extending delay tolerance of mobile applications to optimize mobile traffic management are disclosed. In a mobile device, network stack timers or protocol stack timers are modified to extend delay tolerance of applications for radio alignment. In an embodiment, tolerance of mobile applications on a mobile device to delay in establishing a connection to a wireless network is extended by an application or a local proxy on a mobile device. Based on the tolerance that is extended, requests intercepted from the mobile applications are aggregated, over a period of time, such that transfer of the requests intercepted during the period of time is delayed. This minimizes the number of times the mobile device connects to the network, reducing the power consumption on the mobile device and unnecessary signaling in the network.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for managing mobile traffic in a mobile device, comprising:
 extending tolerance of mobile applications on a mobile device to delay in establishing a connection to a wireless network;   based on the tolerance that is extended, aggregating, over a period of time, requests intercepted from the mobile applications such that transfer of the requests intercepted during the period of time is delayed.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the transfer of the requests intercepted during the period of time is delayed without the mobile applications being aware. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein extending the tolerance of the mobile applications to delay further comprises increasing connection timeouts associated with system timers on which the mobile applications rely when establishing a connection to the wireless network. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the system timers include protocol-specific timers or network stack timers. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the connection timeouts associated with the protocol-specific timers are modified by a framework wrapper in the mobile device. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the protocol-specific timers are associated with a protocol over which the mobile applications communicate. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the protocol includes Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) or Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the period of time over which the requests are aggregated is variable. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the period of time over which the requests are aggregated is one of: a maximum period of time defined by a gating parameter or the maximum period of time adjusted by an occurrence of an event that causes a radio on the mobile device to turn on or change from low power mode to high power mode. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the period of time is dynamically determined based on a policy. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the period of time is dynamically determined based on whether a screen of the mobile device is on or off. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 responsive to establishment of a connection to the wireless network at the end of the period of time, transferring the requests aggregated over the period of time over the wireless network to respective servers to which the requests are directed.   
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , further comprising:
 receiving responses to at least some of the requests from respective servers;   providing the responses to respective mobile applications, such that time elapsed between issuing of the requests and receiving of the responses is within the tolerance of the mobile applications to delay that is extended.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein a local proxy on the mobile device intercepts the requests from the mobile applications to aggregate the requests over the period of time. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein a local proxy on the mobile device determines connection timeouts to extend the tolerance of the mobile applications to delay. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein a local proxy on the mobile device provides connection timeouts to the mobile applications to extend the tolerance of the mobile applications to delay. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the requests are non-user interactive traffic from the mobile applications. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the requests are low priority or non-time critical requests from the mobile applications. 
     
     
         19 . A system for managing mobile traffic in a mobile device, comprising:
 means for intercepting outgoing traffic associated with mobile applications on the mobile device;   means for extending delay tolerance impacting the mobile applications; and   means for bundling the outgoing traffic for radio alignment.   
     
     
         20 . The system of  claim 19 , further comprising:
 means for transferring the outgoing traffic that are bundled at a next radio event.