Patent ID: 7486722

Claim:
A method for increasing bandwidth efficiency of a cable network including a head end Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) communicatively coupled to a plurality of cable modems, the method comprising: determining an attenuation profile associated with a propagation path of the network, so that each cable modem on that path has a known attenuation factor; assigning each non-Multi User Detection (MUD) enabled cable modem that is associated with an attenuation factor below an established attenuation factor threshold to an unique time slot; assigning two or more MUD enabled cable modems on the propagation path to a same time slot and on a same channel; transmitting a channel assignment map that reflects the assignments for the cable modems; simultaneously receiving in the same time slot and on the same channel requests from two or more cable modems responding to the transmitted channel assignment map; and recovering each request using co-channel demodulation capabilities.