Patent ID: 8510470

Claim:
A method for communicating among stations in a network comprising: at a determining station determining costs between the determining station and a headend for a plurality of paths through a respective plurality of stations, the determining comprising: receiving bandwidth data from a first station indicating an effective bandwidth of a first network section, the first network section connecting the first station and the headend, measuring a bandwidth of a second network section, the second network section connecting the determining station and the first station, wherein measuring includes determining a network load between the determining station and the first station during a listening period, and estimating an effective bandwidth of a composite network that comprises the first network section and the second network section based on the effective bandwidth of the first network section and the measured bandwidth of the second network section, the composite network connecting the determining station and the headend through the first station; selecting a low cost path between the determining station and the headend based on the determined costs; and transmitting the determined cost of the selected low cost path.