Patent ID: 6813277
Filing Date: 2004-11-02
Classification: H04J,H04L,H04N,H04Q

Abstract:
A method of allocating transmission bandwidth among a plurality of stations interconnected with a common controller via a transmission medium having a multiple access upstream channel, said method comprising the steps of:dividing data in said upstream channel on said transmission medium into a series of successive time frames; dividing each of the time frames into a plurality of time slots wherein said time slots consist of both fixed length and variable length time slots; responsive to contention by competing stations of said plurality of stations requiring transmission bandwidth, allocating, on an initial basis, one or more of said plurality of time slots to a particular station of said plurality of stations that contends for said plurality of time slots; reserving said one or more of said plurality of time slots for continued use by said particular station in response to a reservation indication contained in a plurality of messages inserted by said particular station in said one or more of said plurality of time slots; providing a plurality of status messages in said one or more of said plurality of time slots indicative of a status of each of said one or more of said plurality of time slots to said plurality of stations from said common controller, the plurality of status messages provided in said plurality of time slots including overhead information; and combining contiguous time slots of the plurality of time slots to form a super slot, if said contiguous time slots are allocated to a particular station of said plurality of stations, by eliminating the overhead information contained in at least one of said contiguous time slots.