Method, System, and Device for Sending Data in a Cable Data Service

• US 20100208751A1
• Filed: 04/23/2010
• Published: 08/19/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Merwe, Jacobus E.Van der, Shankaranarayanan, Nemmara K., Smiljanic, Aleksandra, Woodward, Sheryl Leigh, Desai, Bhavesh N., Totland, Todd J., Shur, David Hilton
• Granted Patent: US 7,990,977 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/474
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2801 Broadband local area networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2856 Access arrangements, e.g. Internet access asynchronous transfer mode networks H04L12/5601; broadband local area networks H04L12/2801; optical access or distribution networks H04Q11/0067; access to open networks H04L12/5691; digital subscriber line end-user equipment and bit-level processing of data on a PSTN-based network H04M11/00; home network gateways H04L12/2834; wireless access networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2861 Point-to-multipoint connection from the data network to the subscribers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2898 Subscriber equipments DSL modems H04M11/062; cable modems H04L12/2801
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/14 Channel dividing arrangements , i.e. in which a single bit stream is divided between several baseband channels and reassembled at the receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/14 Multichannel or multilink protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A method of sending data from a transmit site to a receive device includes dividing a first transmit data stream having a first bit rate into multiple data streams with each of the multiple data streams having a bit rate that is lower than the first bit rate. Each of the multiple data streams is transmitted over a cable network having multiple radio frequency channels. The multiple data streams are recombined at the receive device to provide a receive data stream having a bit rate equal to the first bit rate. A second transmit data stream is transmitted over one of the radio frequency channels to a legacy user connected to the one radio frequency channel between the transmit site and the receive device.

Claims

1. A method of sending data from a transmit site to a receive device, the method comprising:

dividing a first transmit data stream having a first bit rate into multiple data streams with each of the multiple data streams having a bit rate that is lower than the first bit rate;

transmitting each of the multiple data streams over a cable network having multiple radio frequency channels;

recombining the multiple data streams at the receive device to provide a receive data stream having a bit rate equal to the first bit rate; and

transmitting a second transmit data stream over one of the radio frequency channels to a legacy user connected to the one radio frequency channel between the transmit site and the receive device.

2. A system comprising:

a transmit device configured to divide a first transmit data stream having a first bit rate into multiple data streams with each of the multiple data streams having a bit rate that is lower than the first bit rate;

the transmit device configured to transmit each of the multiple data streams over a cable network having multiple radio frequency channels; and

the transmit device configured to transmit a second transmit data stream over one of the radio frequency channels to a legacy user connected to the one radio frequency channel between the transmit device and a receive device;

the receive device configured to recombine the multiple data streams to provide a receive data stream having a bit rate equal to the first bit rate.

3. A transmit device for sending data to a receive device over a cable network having multiple radio frequency channels, the transmit device comprising:

a tunnel source configured to divide a first transmit data stream having a first bit rate into multiple data streams with each of the multiple data streams having a bit rate that is lower than the first bit rate; and

a router configured to transmit the multiple data streams over the multiple radio frequency channels such that the multiple data streams may be recombined at the receive device to provide a receive data stream having a bit rate equal to the first bit rate; and

the router configured to transmit a second data stream over one of the multiple radio frequency channels to a legacy user connected to the one radio frequency channel between the transmit device and the receive device.

4. A transmit device for sending data to a receive site over a cable network having multiple radio frequency channels, the transmit device comprising:

a tunnel source configured to divide a first transmit data stream having a first bit rate into multiple data streams with each of the multiple data streams having a bit rate that is lower than the first bit rate; and

a router configured to transmit the multiple data streams over the multiple radio frequency channels such that the multiple data streams may be recombined at the receive site to provide a receive data stream having a bit rate equal to the first bit rate, and configured to transmit a second data transmit stream over one of the radio frequency channels to a legacy user connected to the one radio frequency channel between the transmit device and the receive site.

5. A device for exchanging data over a cable network having multiple radio frequency channels, the device comprising:

a tunnel source configured to divide a first transmit data stream having a first bit rate into a first set of multiple data streams with each of the first set of multiple data streams having a bit rate that is lower than the first bit rate;

a router configured to transmit the first set of multiple data streams over the multiple radio frequency channels, and configured to transmit a second data transmit stream over one of the radio frequency channels to a legacy user connected to the one radio frequency channel between the transmit site and a tunnel destination;

a plurality of demodulators configured to receive a second set of multiple data streams; and

a tunnel destination configured to receive the second set of multiple data streams, and configured to combine the second set of multiple data streams into a receive data stream.

6. A method of sending data from a transmit site to a receive device, the method comprising:

dividing a first transmit data stream having a first bit rate into multiple data streams with each of the multiple data streams having a bit rate that is lower than the first bit rate;

transmitting each of the multiple data streams over a cable network having multiple radio frequency channels;

recombining the multiple data streams at the receive device to provide a receive data stream having a bit rate equal to the first bit rate; and

transmitting a second transmit data stream over one of the radio frequency channels to a user that is not capable of recombining the multiple data streams, the user connected to the one radio frequency channel between the transmit site and the receive device.