Patent · US Expired

Real time device polling for multiplexed transmission

US6654957B1 · kind B1 · utility

34Cited by
7References
29Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateOct 26, 1999
Grant dateNov 25, 2003
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 26, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L2012/6481
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A real time device polling method for multiplexed transmission of on/off constant bit rate data, such as voice data from a telephone call, over a cable data network is disclosed. The network serves as a shared bus for both the downstream and upstream traffic. The upstream channel is modeled as a stream of mini-slots. A cable modem termination system at the head end supports a number of cable modems attached to the cable network and connected to customer premises equipment. Allocation maps are transmitted on the downstream channel to the cable modems to define transmission opportunities on the upstream channel. The cable modem termination system polls the cable modems in an efficient way such that the overhead associated with the polling is minimized, and the availability of data transmission slots is synchronized with the data packet generation by the codec for the cable modem, which minimizes delay.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.