Patent ID: 8335226

Claim:
A communication system, comprising: a remote node having a remote transmitting module configured to transmit at least a first portion of a data sequence among a first plurality of physical upstream channels, each physical upstream channel of the first plurality of physical upstream channels being characterized by a corresponding first data rate, at a cumulative first data rate using a cumulative first average transmit power, wherein the cumulative first average transmit power is equal to a cumulative second average transmit power that is necessary to transmit the first portion of the data sequence at a cumulative second data rate that is less than the cumulative first data rate using a second plurality of physical upstream channels, the second plurality of physical upstream channels including less physical upstream channels than the first plurality of physical upstream channels, each of the second plurality of the physical upstream channels being characterized by a corresponding second data rate, each of the plurality of second data rates being greater than each of the plurality of first data rates; and a supervisory node coupled to the remote node, the supervisory node comprising: a monitoring module configured to monitor a characteristic associated with the communication system, wherein the characteristic includes an aggregate upstream power of the remote node; and a supervisory transmitting module configured to transmit a first downstream message based on the characteristic, wherein the remote transmitting module is configured to transmit the at least the first portion of the data sequence among the first plurality of physical upstream channels at the cumulative first data rate using the cumulative first average transmit power based on the first downstream message.