Patent ID: 6791984
Filing Date: 2004-09-14
Classification: H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
A subscriber-line-terminating apparatus for terminating lines of a plurality of terminal apparatuses and dynamically allocating band portions to said terminal apparatuses by dynamic allocation of time slots to be used by said terminal apparatuses for information-transmission use to said terminal apparatuses and transmission of polling information indicating allocation of time slots to said terminal apparatuses to said terminal apparatuses, said subscriber-line-terminating apparatus comprising:an in-buffer-information-amount-receiving unit for receiving an in-buffer-information amount indicating an amount of information, which is stored in a predetermined buffer employed in each of said terminal apparatuses and remains to be transmitted, from each of said terminal apparatuses; an insufficient-band-computing unit for computing an insufficient band portion required by each of said terminal apparatuses for transmitting information stored in said buffer on the basis of said in-buffer-information amount received from each of said terminal apparatuses; an apparatus-specific-parameter management table for storing said in-buffer-information amount and a first past-use band variable indicating a band portion dynamically allocated in the past to one of said terminal apparatuses for each of said terminal apparatuses; an in-buffer-information-amount-proportional-band-allocating unit for allocating a band portion corresponding to said in-buffer-information amount to each of said terminal apparatuses on the basis of said insufficient band portion for said terminal apparatus and a total-shared-band upper limit indicating an upper limit of a sum of band portions dynamically allocated to all said terminal apparatuses; a past-use-band-allocating unit, which is used for apportioning a past-use band part into past-use band portions each to be allocated to one of said terminal apparatuses on the basis of said first past-use band variable of said terminal apparatus in case a sum of said band portions proportional to said in-buffer-information amounts of all said terminal apparatuses is smaller than said total-shared-band upper limit where said past-use band part is a difference between said sum of said band portions proportional to said in-buffer-information amounts of all said terminal apparatuses and said total-shared-band upper limit; a first past-use-band-variable-updating unit for updating said first past-use band variable for each of said terminal apparatuses on the basis of a band portion, which is dynamically allocated to said terminal apparatus and includes said band portion proportional to said in-buffer-information amount as well as said past-use band portion, and storing said updated first past-use band variable for each of said terminal apparatuses into said apparatus-specific-parameter management table; a shared-band-polling-information-generating unit for generating polling information showing allocation of time slots to said terminal apparatuses on the basis of band portions, which are dynamically allocated to said terminal apparatuses and each include said band portion proportional to said in-buffer-information amount as well as said past-use band portion; and a polling-information-transmitting unit for transmitting said polling information to said terminal apparatuses.