Patent ID: 6950399

Claim:
A method of transmitting variable bit rate data packets over a bi-directional contention and reservation based network, the network including an operably linked system controller for receiving upstream channel packets and originating downstream channel packets, at least one operably linked remote terminal for receiving the downstream channel packets and originating the upstream channel packets, the network providing periodically allocated grants from the system controller to the at least one remote terminal in the downstream channel for scheduling data packet transfers in the upstream channel, the periodically allocated grants having a bandwidth size, and the network providing dynamically allocated grants from the system controller to the at least one remote terminal in the downstream channel upon request of the at least one remote terminal for scheduling data packet transfers in the upstream channel, the dynamically allocated grants being of a requested bandwidth size, the method comprising: decomposing a first variable bit-rate data packet of a stream of data packets to be transmitted from the at least one remote terminal through the upstream channel into a constant bit-rate packet portion and a variable bit-rate packet portion, the constant bit-rate packet portion having a bandwidth size substantially equal to the average bit-rate of the stream of packets; determining whether the bandwidth size of the decomposed packet is greater than the size of the periodically allocated grant, and, if so; requesting a dynamically allocated grant, the requested dynamically allocated grant substantially equal in bandwidth size to the variable bit-rate packet portion; transmitting the constant bit-rate packet portion in response to a periodically allocated grant; and transmitting the variable bit-rate packet portion in response to a next available grant.