METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR BROADBAND SHARED MEDIUM NETWORKS

摘要

A method and system is disclosed for enabling full-service communicationsbetween a full-service cable modem termination system (fsCMTS) and a pluralityof full-service cable modems (fsCM's) for a conventional two-way hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) cable television network. Full-service communications include data,voice and video. Video includes broadcast quality MPEG-2 transport streams andInternet protocol media streams. A multi-channel full-service media-access-control (fsMAC) coordinates the access to the shared upstream and downstreamchannels. At lease two downstream channels and at least two upstream channelsare provided. Several MAC management messages are defined to enable multi-channel full-service MAC domain to be defined and to enable packet-by-packettrue seamless channel change. Using the novel techniques described in thisinvention, multiple upstream channels can be used in various ways to bestoptimize the use of the spectrum for accommodating various quality-of-serviceneeds of different type of services.