Cisco Technology, Inc.

Albert A Slane

John T Chapman

Alon Shlomo Bernstein

Jin Zhang

Christopher J Kappler

Shengyou Zeng

Gregory S Goss

William Guckel

David B Fox

Andrew T Hebb

A network device has a communications port to provide communication with a data network and a cable port to provide communication with a cable network across multiple channels. The network device also has a processor to receive data from the data network, format the data into packets for transmission across the multiple channels and provide an identifier to allow the packets to be reconstructed.

Wideband cable downstream protocol

A hybrid cable modem includes wideband circuitry configured to receive data over multiple different downstream channels at the same time. The wideband circuitry demodulates signals on the different downstream channels and then formats the demodulated signals back into packets or frames for sending out over an Internet Protocol (IP) home network. Narrowband cable modem circuitry is coupled to the wideband circuitry and selectively extracts Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications (DOCSIS) data from one of the multiple downstream channels being processed by the wideband circuitry.

Wideband cable modem with narrowband circuitry

Typically, queues in a router device are used to track data information such as packets or data flows for later transmission to another downstream communication device. To reduce overhead associated with tracking an average queue length of a queue, a metric reflecting average queue length (or estimated queue length) is updated based on the occurrence of an event such as when the contents of the queue are modified. More specifically, if data is added or deleted from the queue, the metric reflecting an average fullness of the queue over time is updated at substantially the same time as updating the instantaneous queue length metric associated with the queue. This technique of synchronously updating both IQL and AQL simplifies the overall task of maintaining queue length information.

Methods and apparatus for maintaining a queue

A computerized device has dynamically modifiable hardware, such as an ASIC, that performs queue-scheduling operations. The hardware incorporates a generic sorting processor (GSP) that is dynamically configurable to implement various sorting algorithms to meet specific queue scheduling requirements for the computerized device. The computerized device extracts a first time stamp value and a second time stamp value associated with a first queue and a second queue, respectively. The computerized device receives instructions to configure a table of the GSP with scheduling entries. The computerized device compares the first time stamp value with the second time stamp value to form a comparison result. The computerized device then selects a decision instruction from the table, based upon the comparison result, and identifies a preferred queue of the first queue and the second queue, based upon the decision instruction.

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Cottage Grove, WI, United States of America

Albert A Slane