Patent ID: 6885652

Claim:
A multiple access spread-spectrum communication system for dynamically changing a transmission rate of an information signal received from a remote processing unit (RPU) over a telecommunication line and transmitted to a subscriber through a first spread-spectrum message channel of a plurality of spread spectrum message channels, the system comprising: a) a base station, connected to the RPU, which identifies an information signal rate of the respective information signal and provides a modify signal responsive to the information signal rate; comprising: a system channel controller which assigns the information signal and the modify signal to respectively different ones of the plurality of spread-spectrum message channels; first information channel mode modification means connected to the system channel controller and responsive to the modify signal for switching the respective information signal from the first spread-spectrum message channel supporting a first information channel rate to one other pre-determined spread-spectrum message channel, the one other pre-determined spread-spectrum message channel having a different information channel rate supporting the identified information signal rate; and b) a subscriber unit comprising: a first despreading means for recovering the respective information signal and modify signal from the first spread spectrum message channel; second information channel mode modification means responsive to the modify signal for reassigning the first despreading means to a second despreading means which supports the different information channel rate, the second despreading means corresponding to the second spread spectrum message channel; and wherein the system channel controller further includes: means for synchronizing a first message boundary of the first spread spectrum channel to a second message boundary of the second spread spectrum channel on a sub-epoch boundary and means for sending the information signal through the first spread spectrum message channel prior to the sub-epoch boundary and for sending the information signal through the second spread spectrum message channel to the substantial exclusion of the first spread spectrum message channel subsequent to the sub-epoch boundary.