Network having bandwidth sharing

• US 8,059,659 B1
• Filed: 01/18/2007
• Issued: 11/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/12/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lai, Wai Sum, Lester, William G., Guha, Arunabha, Choudhury, Gagan Lal, Segal, Moshe
• Primary Examiner(s): Moe; Aung S
• Assistant Examiner(s): HAILE, FEBEN
• Application Number:
  US11/654,978
• Time in Patent Office: 1,762 Days
• Field of Search: 370/395.4, 370/395.41, 370/468, 370/477, 370/389, 370/392, 370/431, 370/437, 370/464, 370/465, 370/341, 370/352, 370/353, 370/354, 370/355, 370/356, 725/86, 725/95, 725/96, 725/129
• US Class Current: 370/395.41
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76

Abstract

A communication system includes a plurality of devices, such as cable modems, in communication with a station, such as a cable modem termination system, that provides efficient upstream bandwidth sharing.

Claims

1. A machine readable data system for sharing bandwidth of a channel among a plurality of users in a network, comprising:

a machine flexibly partitioning a map interval and storing data formatted according to the flexibly partitioned map interval;

wherein the flexibly partitioned map interval includes a plurality of sub intervals comprising a data+signaling interval and a voice interval,

the flexibly partitioned map interval defining channel transmissions for a period of time, and

a plurality of unsolicited grants for the voice interval are packed away from the data+signaling interval in order to form a single hole adjoining the data+signaling interval, wherein when a voice call termination leaves a gap among the plurality of unsolicited grants, the gap is closed by a movement of at least one of the plurality of unsolicited grants away from the data+signaling interval.

2. The machine readable data system of claim 1,

wherein the system is configured to generate the map interval.

3. The machine readable data system of claim 1,

wherein the system is configured to allow a soft partition among voice and data in which data is allowed to utilize unused bandwidth in the voice interval.

4. The machine readable data system of claim 1,

wherein the system is configured to place a request interval, management interval and the voice interval adjacent to each other at one end of the map interval so that a single contiguous interval is available for the data+signaling interval.

5. The machine readable data system of claim 1,

wherein the system is configured to place a request interval and a management interval and the voice interval on opposite ends of the map interval so that a single contiguous interval is available for the data+signaling interval.

6. The machine readable data system of claim 1,

wherein the system is configured to use unused bandwidth of the voice interval by the data+signaling interval.

7. The machine readable data system of claim 1,

wherein the system is configured to prevent use of unused bandwidth of the data+signaling interval by the data+signaling interval.

8. The machine readable data system of claim 1,

wherein the system is configured to generate a secondary request interval within the map interval if bandwidth is available.

9. The machine readable data system of claim 1,

wherein the system is configured to transmit the map interval from a cable modem termination system on a downstream channel to a plurality of cable modems, wherein the map interval defines upstream traffic for the plurality of cable modems for a future period of time.

10. A machine readable data system for sharing bandwidth of a channel among a plurality of users in a network, comprising:

a machine flexibly partitioning a map interval and storing a data structure formatted according to the flexibly partitioned map interval;

wherein the flexibly partitioned map interval includes a plurality of sub intervals comprising a data+signaling interval and a voice interval,

the flexibly partitioned map interval defining channel transmissions for a period of time, and

a plurality of unsolicited grants for the voice interval are packed away from the data+signaling interval in order to form a single hole adjoining the data+signaling interval, wherein when a voice call termination leaves a gap among the plurality of unsolicited grants, the gap is closed by a movement of at least one of the plurality of unsolicited grants away from the data+signaling interval.

11. The machine readable data system of claim 10,

wherein the system is configured to place voice unsolicited grants contiguously within the voice interval.

12. The machine readable data system of claim 10, further comprising:

wherein the system is configured to place the plurality of voice unsolicited grants contiguously within the voice interval; and

wherein the system is configured to remove a voice unsolicited grant from the plurality of voice unsolicited grants responsive to the voice call termination.

13. The machine readable data system of claim 10,

wherein the system is configured to place unsolicited grants within the voice interval until a predetermined fraction of total bandwidth available for voice, data, and signaling is reached.

14. The machine readable data system of claim 10,

wherein the system is configured to place unsolicited grants within the voice interval up to a predetermined maximum bandwidth.

15. The machine readable data system of claim 10,

wherein the system is configured to assign a higher priority to signaling packets than data packets within the data+signaling interval.

16. The machine readable data system of claim 10,

wherein the system is configured to assign unique service flow identifications to each signaling and data stream of the data+signaling interval.

17. The machine readable data system of claim 10,

wherein the system is configured to form a second request interval when bandwidth is available, wherein the plurality of sub intervals comprises a first request interval.

18. The machine readable data system of claim 10, wherein the plurality of sub intervals comprises a request interval.

19. The machine readable data system of claim 10, wherein the plurality of sub intervals comprises a management interval.