Patent ID: 7194009

Claim:
A method for enabling a modem termination system (MTS) to communicate with a plurality of modems using a full-service medium access control (MAC) in a shared medium network comprising: a. establishing via one or more downstream MAC messages, a MAC domain comprising of a plurality of downstream channels and a plurality of upstream channels, each channel utilizing a separate channel frequency, and including at least one upstream control channel that carries primarily MAC messages; wherein at least one of said MAC messages identifies a first downstream and a first upstream channel-pair carrying out MAC message exchanges between said MTS and said plurality of modems; b. establishing a time synchronization with said MTS via one or more synchronization downstream MAC messages from said MTS; c. calibrating at least one modem of said plurality of modems by at least one calibration MAC message exchange between said at least one modem of said plurality of modems and said MTS; d. sending via another downstream MAC message an allocation of a plurality of contention request time slots to said plurality of modems; e. receiving one or more bandwidth request MAC upstream messages in one or more said time slots without error from one or more said modems; and f. granting each of said modems in step (e), via a bandwidth grant downstream MAC message, to transmit a number of bytes in a specified upstream channel, at a specified time, with a specified burst profile.