Patent ID: 8174956

Claim:
A remote service unit using minimum allocations in a multipoint-to-point communication system, the remote service unit comprising: a transceiver communicatively coupled with a host unit in a multipoint-to-point configuration, the transceiver configured to communicate with the host unit via a composite orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) waveform of adjacent spectrally overlapping sub-carriers; a multi-carrier modem coupled to the transceiver and configured to modulate upstream payload data onto a plurality OFDM sub-carriers transmitted by the transceiver, the multi-carrier modem synchronized with the host unit such that the upstream payload data transmitted by the transceiver, and other upstream OFDM signals from other transceivers received at the host unit, combine to form the composite OFDM waveform; wherein the remote unit receives channel allocations from the host unit, wherein channel allocations for transport of upstream payload data always provide at least a minimum allocation of at least two OFDM sub-carriers.