Patent ID: 7110419
Filing Date: 2006-09-19
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for reducing collisions of signals occurring on at least one communication channel in an access network, the access network including at least one Head End and a plurality of network nodes, the signals being transmitted by different nodes over the communication channel, the method comprising: transmitting a first plurality of communication request messages to a first portion of nodes, wherein the first plurality of communication request messages do not include filter parameters for restricting responses to the first plurality of communication request messages; and transmitting a second plurality of communication request messages to the first portion of nodes, wherein the second plurality of communication request messages each include filter parameters for restricting a number of responses to the second plurality of communication request messages; wherein the filter parameters include an address comparison value parameter which specifies a particular value to be used by each of the first portion of nodes for performing address comparison.