Managing Upstream Transmission in a Network
AssigneeComcast Cable Communications, LLC
InventorsDavid Urban, Jorge Salinger
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A bandwidth allocation and monitoring method may divide available bandwidth on a shared communication medium into a plurality of discrete tones that can be individually allocated to modems on an as-needed basis. The effective modulation rate that a particular modem can use for each discrete tone can be monitored over time using a schedule of pilot tones transmitted from the modems on different tones at different times. The schedule may define representative pilot tones, in which case effective modulation rates for neighboring tones may be inferred from a determined effective modulation rate of a pilot tone.
Claims21
(canceled)
A method, comprising:
- determining, by a computing device, a plurality of effective modulation rates of a corresponding plurality of different tones received from a modem;
- and
- determining, by the computing device and based on the plurality of effective modulation rates, a tone, from amongst the plurality of different tones, for the modem to utilize for a subsequent transmission.
A method, comprising:
- transmitting, by a computing device and to a plurality of modems, a schedule identifying a plurality of time slots at which each modem is to transmit a pilot signal, wherein for each time slot, the schedule identifies a different tone of a plurality of predefined tones of a communication system on which each modem is to transmit its corresponding pilot signal;
- receiving, by the computing device and from each modem of the plurality of modems, a plurality of pilot signals on the plurality of predefined tones according to the schedule, each pilot signal of the plurality of pilot signals being transmitted using a predetermined modulation;
- and
- transmitting, by the computing device and to each modem of the plurality of modems, predistortion data to adjust modulation of upstream signals for subsequent transmissions on the predefined tones.
A method, comprising:
- determining, by a computing device, a plurality of effective modulation rates of a corresponding plurality of different tones received from a modem;
- and
- determining, by the computing device and based on the plurality of effective modulation rates, from amongst the plurality of different tones, at least one of a tone and one or more harmonic tones corresponding to the tone for the modem to utilize for subsequent transmissions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.