Patent ID: 7451235

Claim:
A method for optimizing the transmission of TCP/IP traffic between a cable modem and a cable modem termination system (CMTS) in a DOCSIS network, comprising the steps of: (a) determining whether the CMTS supports a dynamic delta encoding header suppression protocol; (b) transmitting rules to enable the CMTS to reconstruct a packet from the cable modem in accordance with the protocol; and (c) responsive to a determination that the CMTS does support the dynamic delta encoding header suppression protocol, performing operations including (i) transmitting fields in a first protocol header of a first TCP protocol packet from the cable modem, (ii) suppressing a redundant field in a second protocol header of a subsequent TCP protocol packet, and (iii) transmitting a delta-encoded value for each non-redundant field in said second protocol header of said subsequent TCP protocol packet, wherein said delta-encoded value represents a change in value from a respective non-redundant field in said first protocol header of said first TCP protocol packet.