Patent ID: 8391221

Claim:
A method for allocating bandwidth resources in a satellite communications system having a plurality of terminals, the plurality of terminals being in communication with the satellite over a communication channel defined according to a channel bandwidth, the bandwidth resources defined in resource units, the method comprising: identifying channel resources for a defined time duration for the communication channel, the channel resources comprising a number of time slots of the channel bandwidth; identifying a plurality of carrier groups including a first carrier group associated with a first carrier bandwidth less than the channel bandwidth and a second carrier group associated with a second carrier bandwidth different from the first carrier bandwidth; receiving a resource request from each of at least a subset of the plurality of terminals associated with the first carrier group of the plurality of carrier groups; determining an amount of requested resource units associated with the defined time duration for each of a plurality of traffic classes for the first carrier group based at least in part on the resource requests; identifying a first carrier group allocation comprising a number of allocated time slots of the first carrier bandwidth for the defined time duration; and distributing the allocated time slots of the first carrier group allocation among the plurality of traffic classes according to the amount of requested resource units for each of the plurality of traffic classes and a set of resource obligations associated with each of the plurality of traffic classes, the set of resource obligations comprising a committed information rate associated with the resource requests.