Patent ID: 8311006

Claim:
A method for allocating bandwidth resources in a satellite communications system having a plurality of terminals, each terminal being in communication with a satellite over a communication link defined according to a plurality of carrier groups, the bandwidth resources defined in resource units, the method comprising: identifying an amount of allocatable resource units being a total amount of resource units designated for allocation for a defined time duration according to a request fulfillment scheme; identifying an amount of requested resource units for the defined time duration according to resource requests by the plurality of terminals; identifying an amount of allocated resource units being a portion of the requested resource units allocated according to the request fulfillment scheme and being less than the amount of allocatable resource units; determining an amount of remaining requested units for the defined time duration as the amount of requested resource units less the amount of allocated resource units; determining an amount of remaining allocatable units for the defined time duration as the amount of allocatable resource units less the amount of allocated resource units; and allocating, with a computer system, when the amount of remaining requested units is greater than the amount of remaining allocatable units, the remaining allocatable units according to a resource sharing scheme by: identifying a weighted set of request groupings, each request grouping comprising a subset of the resource requests determined according to one or more grouping criteria, and each request grouping being associated with a weighting factor; determining an attributable amount of requested resource units attributable to each request grouping; calculating a weighted attributable amount for each request grouping by weighting the attributable amount for each request grouping according to its associated weighting factor; and allocating the remaining resource units to each request grouping according to its weighted attributable amount.