Multi-Tier Polling
AssigneeCable Television Laboratories, Inc.
InventorsJennifer Andreoli-Fang, Luis Alberto Campos
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A polling arrangement where polling frequency and/or rates may be adjusted according to activities of end stations or other elements being polled. The ability to adjust the polling activities may be used to facilitate reducing or otherwise controlling network resources allocated to the supporting the polling or other messaging depending operations.
Claims20
A method of dynamically managing network space allocated to end stations desiring to transmit data, the method comprising:
- monitoring data transmission activities of the plurality of end stations;
- logging information reflective of the monitored data transmission activities;
- individually characterizing each end station to be one of active and inactive based on the logged information;
- allocating a first amount of network space to a first plurality of end stations characterized as being inactive;
- allocating a second amount of network space to a second plurality of end stations characterized as being active, the second amount of network space being greater than the first amount of network space.
A method of allocating data units of a transmission channel used to support polling of end stations, the end stations being characterized as one of active and inactive, the method comprising:
- allocating a first number of data units to support polling of a first plurality of the end stations characterized as being inactive;
- and
- allocating a second number of data units to support polling of a second plurality of the end stations characterized as being active, the second number of data units being greater than the first number of data units.
A computer program product embedded in a non-transitory computer readable medium, the medium storing instructions for allocating minislots of a transmission channel used to support polling a plurality of end stations, the medium including non-transitory instructions sufficient for:
- logging transmission activities of the plurality of end stations;
- characterizing each end station to be one of active and inactive based on the logged transmission activities;
- allocating a first number of minslots to a first plurality of end stations characterized as being inactive;
- allocating a second number of minislots to a second plurality of end stations characterized as being active, the second number of minislots being greater than the first number of minislots.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.