Modified range requests enabling bandwidth requests and state of health reporting

A mechanism for enabling bandwidth requests in a broadband communications system, comprising:

• a modified range request message, said modified range request message comprising,
• a piggyback request for enabling subscribers to request bandwidth in a non-contention environment;
• and
• a plurality of parameters indicating the status of a downstream transmission received by a given subscriber.

A method for enabling bandwidth allocation to subscriber equipment in a broadband communications system, comprising:

• (1) receiving a frame of data;
• (2) determining whether said frame of data is a modified ranging request;
• (3) if said frame of data is a modified ranging request, parsing a piggyback request within said frame to determine the subscriber equipment requesting bandwidth and the number of minislots requested;
• and
• (4) granting bandwidth to the specified subscriber equipment, wherein said piggyback request enables the request for bandwidth by the specified subscriber equipment without being subject to contention.

A method for obtaining status of a downstream transmission in a broadband communications system, said method comprising:

• (1) receiving a frame of data;
• (2) determining whether said frame of data is a modified ranging request;
• (3) if said frame of data is a modified ranging request, parsing a management message header of said frame to determine state of health information on the status of said downstream transmission;
• and
• (4) using said state of health information to determine how to assign subscribers to queues in an adaptive modulation scheme.