Patent ID: 7688824

Claim:
A method for suppressing payload headers of a data stream based on a particular flow within a cable modem system, comprising the steps of: detecting an incoming data stream; identifying the incoming data stream as corresponding to a particular flow; accessing a plurality of suppression indices, wherein each suppression index within the plurality of suppression indices provides a pointer to a copy of an unsuppressed payload header, provides a mask, or a template, which indicates which payload header fields have and have not been suppressed, and provides rules by which a suppressed payload header is to be reconstructed; and reusing with a processing device one of the plurality of suppression indices to produce a reused suppression index in response to determining no suppression index within the plurality of suppression indices being assigned to the particular flow, wherein said reusing includes applying the reused suppression index to suppress a payload header corresponding to the incoming data stream, and wherein said reusing step further comprises the step of: reusing a least recently used suppression index to produce the reused suppression index.