REQUEST MECHANISM FOR A COMMUNICATION SYSTEM BETWEEN INTERACTIVE TERMINALS AND MASTER STATION

• US 20030187981A1
• Filed: 11/30/1999
• Published: 10/02/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: BERRADA, MAROUANE
• Granted Patent: US 6,826,589 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/225
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2123 Variable assignment, e.g. demand assignment
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/26 Resource reservation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/04 Wireless resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/06 Airborne or Satellite Networks space-based or airborne stations H04B7/185

Abstract

The invention relates to a communication system comprising a plurality of interactive terminals which communicate with a master station via a transmission medium. The invention is particularly applied to interactive satellite broadcast systems. The invention relates to a request mechanism permitting the interactive terminals to have reservations assigned to them on the transmission medium for transmitting information to the master station. When a terminal receives assignments that have not yet expired, it temporarily stores them in an assignment memory. The invention comprises taking the number of assignments contained in this memory into account when a new request is transmitted. It thus permits to avoid that requests for the assignments that have already been granted are formulated again.

Claims

1. A communication system comprising at least a master station and a plurality of terminals intended to communicate with the master station via a transmission medium, said terminals comprising means for requesting the assignment of a certain number of reservations on the transmission medium, characterized in that at least one terminal comprises:

a counter which indicates the number of reservations that have already been assigned to the terminal and which the terminal has not yet used,

and means for formulating the number of reservations to be requested while the value of said counter is taken into account.

2. A terminal intended to communicate with a master station of a communication system via a transmission medium and comprising means for requesting the assignment of a certain number of reservations on the transmission medium, characterized in that it comprises:

a counter which indicates the number of reservations that have already been assigned to the terminal and which the terminal has not yet used,

and means for formulating the number of reservations to be requested while the value of said counter is taken into account.

3. A request method enabling a terminal intended for communication with a master station of a communication system via a transmission medium to have a certain number of reservations assigned to it on the transmission medium, characterized in that the method comprises:

storing a counter that indicates the number of reservations that have already been assigned to said terminal and which the terminal has not yet used,

formulating the number of reservations to be requested for said terminal while the value of said counter is taken into account.