Patent ID: 8201207

Claim:
A method comprising: defining one or more thresholds for each of a plurality of upstream logical channels of a headend system for receiving data from a plurality of cable modems, wherein each defined threshold corresponds to a measurable parameter of the corresponding upstream logical channel; collecting one or more metrics for each cable modem of each upstream logical channel; determining whether to downgrade a selected cable modem to a selected one of the logical channels that has a lower performance level than the selected cable modem's current logical channel, wherein such downgrade determination is based on whether the selected cable modem's collected one or more metrics have failed a condition of the one or more defined thresholds and whether a percentage of a total of the cable modems of such current logical channel that have failed a condition for the one or more defined thresholds is less than a predefined percentage level; and causing the selected cable modem to move from the current logical channel to the selected logical channel when the percentage of the total cable modems is below a predefined level.