Patent ID: 8423660

Claim:
A datacasting apparatus, comprising: a plurality of compound carousels associated with a plurality of datacast sessions, each datacast session having session parameters comprising a priority level and at least one bandwidth guideline; a bandwidth manager configured to, at least: receive a bandwidth allocation request specifying at least a desired bandwidth from each of the plurality of compound carousels; identify a plurality of subsets of the plurality of compound carousels based at least on the priority levels of the plurality of datacast sessions; determine a bandwidth allocation for each of the plurality of compound carousels based at least on a plurality of bandwidth allocation cycles, each bandwidth allocation cycle comprising an at least partial allocation of an available bandwidth among each compound carousel in one of the plurality of identified subsets of the plurality of compound carousels, each at least partial allocation based at least on corresponding subsets of desired bandwidths and bandwidth guidelines; and notify each of the plurality of compound carousels of its determined bandwidth allocation; and one or more processors collectively facilitating at least the plurality of compound carousels and the bandwidth manager.