Patent ID: 6785252
Filing Date: 2004-08-31
Classification: H04L,H04Q,H04W

Abstract:
A method for allocating bandwidth in a wireless communication system, wherein the wireless communication system includes a plurality of customer premise equipment (CPE) in communication with associated and corresponding base stations, and wherein the base stations maintain uplink sub-frame maps representative of the bandwidth allocations in the uplink communication path, the method comprising:(a) determining an incremental bandwidth requirement for a selected CPE; (b) transmitting incremental bandwidth requests to a base station that is associated with the selected CPE, wherein the incremental bandwidth requests contain information indicative of incremental bandwidth requirements determined as in step (a); (c) determining an aggregate bandwidth requirement for the selected CPE; (d) determining (i) an estimate of aggregate bandwidth requirements for the selected CPE that is based at least in part upon incremental bandwidth requests for the selected CPE that have been received by the associated base station, and (ii) whether an aggregate bandwidth request should be transmitted to the base station associated with the selected CPE to reduce errors in the aggregate bandwidth estimate determined in step (d)(i), wherein the aggregate bandwidth request contains information indicative of the aggregate bandwidth requirement determined in step (c); and (e) if an aggregate bandwidth request is determined to be required in step (d)(ii), then transmitting the aggregate bandwidth request to the associated base station and returning to step (a), else returning to step (a) without transmitting an aggregate bandwidth request.