Patent ID: 7254166

Claim:
An apparatus for allocating an available amount of power to a plurality of Discrete Multi-Tone (DMT) frequency tones, each tone in said plurality of tones corresponding to a bin of predetermined bandwidth in a plurality of bins of predetermined bandwidth, said apparatus comprising: a pre-filtering unit configured to identify at least a first bin of predetermined bandwidth in said plurality of bins of predetermined bandwidth that is unable to receive a predetermined minimum number of bits using a predetermined portion of said available amount of power; and a repeated-bisection power splitting and allocation unit configured to allocate said available amount of power to all bins in said plurality of bins except said at least a first bin of predetermined bandwidth, wherein said pre-filtering unit comprises: means for calculating a first number of bits that can be received in said at least a first bin of predetermined bandwidth with less than a desired bit error rate; and means for comparing said first number of bits to said predetermined minimum number of bits.