Wideband cable system
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A system, comprising:
- a Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) configured to establish a logical wideband channel extending to a remote wideband cable modem over a plurality of downstream Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) channels, wherein the logical wideband channel originates from within a Data Over Cable System Interface Specification (DOCSIS) network extending between the CMTS and the remote wideband cable modem;
wherein the CMTS includes Vertical Alignment Indexes (VAIs) in packets to identify temporal positions of the packets in the plurality of QAM channels;
the wideband cable modem configured to receive and decode the logical wideband channel, wherein the logical wideband channel spans across a first combination of some of the QAM channels at a first time and a second different combination of some of the QAM channels at a second later time; and
the wideband cable modem configured to monitor all the QAM channels for the packets having a particular packet identifier value that correlates said packets to the logical wideband channel, to track dynamic utilization of the QAM channels by the logical wideband channel over the different times according to the monitoring;
wherein the wideband cable modem is configured to use the VAIs to temporally realign the packets received over the different QAM channels.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A wideband cable modem system increases available bandwidth of a single channel by encoding a data stream into wideband packets. The wideband packets are associated with a logical wideband channel that extends over multiple physical downstream cable channels.
44 Citations
36 Claims
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1. A system, comprising:
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a Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) configured to establish a logical wideband channel extending to a remote wideband cable modem over a plurality of downstream Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) channels, wherein the logical wideband channel originates from within a Data Over Cable System Interface Specification (DOCSIS) network extending between the CMTS and the remote wideband cable modem; wherein the CMTS includes Vertical Alignment Indexes (VAIs) in packets to identify temporal positions of the packets in the plurality of QAM channels; the wideband cable modem configured to receive and decode the logical wideband channel, wherein the logical wideband channel spans across a first combination of some of the QAM channels at a first time and a second different combination of some of the QAM channels at a second later time; and the wideband cable modem configured to monitor all the QAM channels for the packets having a particular packet identifier value that correlates said packets to the logical wideband channel, to track dynamic utilization of the QAM channels by the logical wideband channel over the different times according to the monitoring; wherein the wideband cable modem is configured to use the VAIs to temporally realign the packets received over the different QAM channels. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A wideband Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS), comprising:
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a transmitter configured to decompose and repacketize frames for a data stream into wideband packets that form a logical wideband channel that originates from the CMTS, dynamically extends over a plurality of Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) channels, and terminates on a wideband cable modem; wherein the transmitter includes Vertical Alignment Indexes (VAIs) in the wideband packets to identify temporal positions of the wideband packets in the plurality of QAM channels; wherein the logical wideband channel spans across a first combination of some of the QAM channels at a first time and a second different combination of some of the QAM channels at a second later time; and the transmitter configured to insert a same packet identifier value into a predetermined field of the wideband packets of the logical wideband channel, the predetermined field to be scanned by the wideband cable modem to track changes in which of the QAM channels are utilized by the logical wideband channel over time; wherein the wideband cable modem is configured to use the VAIs to temporally realign packets received over the plurality of QAM channels. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A wideband Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) encoded with instructions that, if executed, result in:
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decomposing and repacketizing a data stream into wideband packets; associating the wideband packets with a logical wideband channel that dynamically extends over a plurality of Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) channels and between the CMTS and a wideband cable modem; wherein the CMTS includes Vertical Alignment Indexes (VAIs) in the wideband packets to identify temporal positions of the wideband packets in the plurality of QAM channels; wherein the logical wideband channel spans across a first combination of some of the QAM channels at a first time and a second different combination of some of the QAM channels at a second later time; wherein said association includes inserting a packet identifier value into a field of a Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) packet header of the wideband packets; wherein the packet identifier value is the same for all the wideband packets and different than wideband packets associated with different logical wideband channels; and transmitting the wideband packets over the QAM channels; wherein the wideband cable modem is configured to use the VAIs to temporally realign packets received over the plurality of QAM channels. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
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Specification