Apparatus and Methods for Incorporating Bandwidth Forecasting and Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation into a Broadband Communication System

A cable modem, comprising:

• a media access control (MAC) layer;
• communication components coupled to the MAC layer operative for communicating digital data over a shared access communication medium;
• a statistics collector coupled to the MAC layer for collecting statistical information relating to traffic in the media access control (MAC) layer;
• a lookahead scheduler coupled to the MAC layer operative for forecasting schedule transmission opportunities on a given channel;
• and
• a predictor responsive to the statistical information collected by the statistics collector, for generating prediction signals representative of future bandwidth requirements.

A cable modem termination system (CMTS) configured to making channel assignments to users and to load-balance a plurality of channels on a shared access communications medium comprising:

• a prediction filter for receiving prediction signals representative of future bandwidth requirements of users on the shared medium;
• a prediction cache coupled to the prediction filter for storing prediction signals received by the prediction filter;
• a media access control (MAC) layer coupled to the prediction cache;
• a load balancer coupled to the MAC layer for making channel assignments such that a plurality users are each assigned a respective channel of the shared medium based upon the prediction signals and one or more rules for bandwidth allocation;
• and
• a rule storage element coupled to the MAC layer for storing the one or more rules for bandwidth allocation.

A data communications system for controlling network access of a plurality of users to a shared access communications medium, the system comprising:

• one or more cable modems coupled to the shared medium;
• a cable modem termination system (CMTS) coupled to the shared medium, the CMTS having a media access control (MAC) layer;
• a statistics collector coupled to the MAC layer for collecting statistical flow information relating to service flows on the shared medium;
• a statistics cache coupled to the statistics collector for storing the statistical flow information;
• a prediction filter coupled to the shared medium for receiving prediction signals from the one or more cable modems, the prediction signals representative of future bandwidth requirements of users of the shared medium;
• a prediction cache coupled to the prediction filter for storing prediction signal information;
• a service flow manager coupled to the statistics cache and to the prediction cache for dynamically adjusting quality of service (QoS) parameters of service flows responsively to each of the statistical flow information, the prediction signal information, and rules relating to control of access to the shared medium;
• a load balancer coupled to the statistics cache and to the prediction cache for dynamically making channel assignments such that one or more users are each assigned a respective channel of the shared medium responsively to each of the statistical flow information, the prediction signal information, and rules relating to control of access to the shared medium;
• and a rule base coupled to the service flow manager and to the load balancer for storing the rules relating to control of access to the shared medium and providing the rules policies to the service flow manager and load balancer.