Patent ID: 7856049

Claim:
A cable modem communication system that supports attenuated transmission adaptation during registering and ranging operations, the system comprising: a plurality of Cable Modems (CMs); a Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) that communicatively couples to the plurality of CMs via a CM network segment and that is operable to segregate the plurality of CMs into at least two CM groups comprising a first group of CMs with which standard registering and ranging operations are performed and a second group of CMs with which attenuated transmission registering and ranging operations are performed; each CM of the first group of CMs operable to perform registering and ranging operations by transmitting a ranging burst of a first format; and each CM of the second group of CMs operable to perform registering and ranging operations by transmitting a ranging burst of a second format that differs from the ranging burst of the first format.