Robust techniques for upstream communication between subscriber stations and a base station

• US 9,301,310 B2
• Filed: 07/02/2013
• Issued: 03/29/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Broadcom Corporation (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Quigley, Thomas J., Min, Jonathan S., Denney, Lisa V., Samueli, Henry, Nazareth, Sean F., Chen, Feng, Lu, Fang, Jones, Christopher R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Brian D
• Application Number:
  US13/933,510
• Publication Number:
  US 20130294377A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,001 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/1027 assessing signal quality or detecting noise/interference for the received signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/1036 with automatic suppression of narrow band noise or interference, e.g. by using tuneable notch filters H04B1/123 takes precedence; filter circuits H03H
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0655 using timestamps
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/0682 by delay compensation, e.g. by compensation of propagation delay or variations thereof, by ranging
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0003 by switching between different modulation schemes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0009 by adapting the channel coding H04L1/1812 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0045 Arrangements at the receiver end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0061 Error detection codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/203 Details of error rate determination, e.g. BER, FER or WER
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2801 Broadband local area networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2025/03808 Transmission of equaliser coefficients
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/03019 adaptive, i.e. capable of adjustment during data reception
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/03057 with a recursive structure H04L25/03031 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/03343 Arrangements at the transmitter end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/0014 Carrier regulation of chaotic carriers H04L27/001; for multicarrier receivers H04L27/2657
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2601 Multicarrier modulation systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/34 Amplitude- and phase-modulated carrier systems, e.g. quadrature-amplitude modulated carrier systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/142 using statistical or mathematical methods
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/003 Arrangements for allocating sub-channels of the transmission path
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/1446 of transmission speed
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/542 : using measured or perceived quality
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 : in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Abstract

A number of features for enhancing the performance of a communication system, in which data is transmitted between a base station and a plurality of subscriber stations located different distances from the base station, are presented. The power transmission level, slot timing, and equalization of the subscriber stations are set by a ranging process. Data is transmitted by the subscriber stations in fragmented form. Various measures are taken to make transmission from the subscriber stations robust. The uplink data transmission is controlled to permit multiple access from the subscriber stations.

Claims

1. A base station comprising:

a receiver configured to process an upstream signal received on an uplink channel from a subscriber station;

a transmitter configured to send a downstream signal on a downlink channel from the base station to the subscriber station; and

a monitoring circuit configured to;

collect packet based statistics representative of a channel quality of the uplink channel based on the upstream signal,

send a message, based on the collected statistics indicating the channel quality to be above a threshold, to the transmitter for the subscriber station to change a physical layer parameter of the uplink channel used to send upstream signals and to the receiver to process the upstream signals based on the changed physical layer parameter, and

send a message, based on the collected statistics indicating the channel quality to be below the threshold, to the transmitter for the subscriber station to reallocate the uplink channel to a different frequency.

2. The base station of claim 1, wherein the collected statistics include a number of undetected packets transmitted over the uplink channel.

3. The base station of claim 1, wherein the collected statistics include a number of packets transmitted over the uplink channel without a unique word.

4. The base station of claim 1, wherein the collected statistics include a number of packets transmitted over the uplink channel with corrected errors.

5. The base station of claim 1, wherein the collected statistics include a number of packets transmitted over the uplink channel with uncorrectable errors.

6. The base station of claim 1, wherein the collected statistics include a number of forward error correction (FEC) blocks transmitted over the uplink channel with corrected errors.

7. The base station of claim 1, wherein the collected statistics include a number of forward error correction (FEC) blocks transmitted over the uplink channel with uncorrectable errors.

8. The base station of claim 1, wherein the physical layer parameter is a type of modulation.

9. The base station of claim 1, wherein the physical layer parameter is a coding gain.

10. The base station of claim 1, wherein the physical layer parameter is a symbol rate.

11. The base station of claim 1, wherein the physical layer parameter is a guard time.

12. The base station of claim 1, wherein the physical layer parameter is a constellation size of a modulation.

13. A base station comprising:

a receiver configured to process an upstream signal from a subscriber station;

a transmitter configured to send a downstream signal to the subscriber station; and

a monitoring circuit configured to;

collect statistics representative of a channel quality based on the upstream signal,

send a message, based on the collected statistics indicating the channel quality to be above a threshold, to the transmitter for the subscriber station to change a physical layer parameter of the uplink channel used to send upstream signals, and

send a message, based on the collected statistics indicating the channel quality to be below the threshold, to the transmitter for the subscriber station to reallocate the uplink channel to a different frequency.

14. The base station of claim 13, wherein the collected statistics include a number of undetected packets transmitted.

15. The base station of claim 13, wherein the collected statistics include a number of packets without a unique word.

16. The base station of claim 13, wherein the collected statistics include a number of packets with corrected errors.

17. The base station of claim 13, wherein the collected statistics include a number of packets with uncorrectable errors.

18. The base station of claim 13, wherein the collected statistics include a number of forward error correction (FEC) blocks with corrected errors.

19. The base station of claim 13, wherein the collected statistics include a number of forward error correction (FEC) blocks with uncorrectable errors.

20. The base station of claim 13, wherein the physical layer parameter is a type of modulation.

21. The base station of claim 13, wherein the physical layer parameter is a coding gain.

22. The base station of claim 13, wherein the physical layer parameter is a symbol rate.

23. The base station of claim 13, wherein the physical layer parameter is a guard time.

24. The base station of claim 13, wherein the physical layer parameter is a constellation size of a modulation.