Patent ID: 7379505

Claim:
A method for performing trellis coded modulation of signals for transmission over a cable network, comprising: receiving a plurality of blocks of outer encoded data by an inner encoder, wherein said outer encoded data includes complete blocks of outer encoded data and incomplete blocks of outer encoded data; trellis encoding said complete blocks of outer encoded data to generate a plurality of blocks of trellis encoded data; combining said plurality of blocks of trellis encoded data with said incomplete blocks of outer encoded data to generate an encoded data stream; and determining if said encoded data stream should be transmitted over a time division multiple access (TDMA) channel or a synchronous code division multiple access (S-CDMA) channel of said cable network; if said encoded data stream should be transmitted over said TDMA channel: modulating said encoded data stream for transmission over said TDMA channel of said cable network; else modulating said encoded data stream for transmission over said S-CDMA channel of said cable network.