Patent ID: 7054936

Claim:
A computer network uplinking system comprising: a. a controller tier including a controller node having a processor, a memory communicatively coupled with the processor, and a communication interface communicatively coupled with the processor; b. an uplinking tier including a plurality uplinking nodes, with each one of the plurality of uplinking nodes having a processor, a memory communicatively coupled with the processor, and a communication interface communicatively coupled with the processor, wherein the communication interface of each one of the plurality of uplinking nodes communicates with the communication interface of the controller node by transmitting and receiving data in a series of frames, with each frame including a reservation subframe, including a plurality of reservation slots, and an information subframe, including a plurality of slots, and with a current frame represented as frame K and a next frame represented as a frame K+1; c. wherein each uplinking node further includes at least one data application operating within its memory and processor, with the data application operative to generate data having a particular priority, and wherein the processor generates a reservation request based on the data generated by the data application and transmits the request to the controller node via the reservation subframe of the current frame K through the communication interface, with the reservation subframe of the frame K including the aggregate of the reservation requests of the plurality of uplinking nodes; d. wherein the controller node is operative to receive the reservation subframe including the reservation requests of the plurality of uplinking nodes in the frame K, and wherein the controller node utilizes the priority of each data application as well as information about the data generated by the data application in order to allocate the slots of the information subframe of the next frame K+1, and wherein the controller node sends a control signal to each of the uplinking nodes indicating the slots of the information subframe of the next frame K+1 in which the respective uplinking node is authorized to transmit; and e. wherein each one of the plurality of uplinking nodes is operative to receive the control signal from the controller node, and to transmit data from the data application in the slots of the information subframe of the next frame K+1 in which the uplinking node is authorized to transmit.