The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 05, 2011
Filed:
Mar. 19, 2009
Dolors Sala, Atlanta, GA (US);
Ajay Chandra V. Gummalla, Atlanta, GA (US);
Niki R. Pantelias, Duluth, GA (US);
Dolors Sala, Atlanta, GA (US);
Ajay Chandra V. Gummalla, Atlanta, GA (US);
Niki R. Pantelias, Duluth, GA (US);
Broadcom Corporation, Irvine, CA (US);
Abstract
A system and method for management of bandwidth in a fiber optic, ethernet-based, TDMA communications system. A request/grant process is used to control the use of upstream bandwidth. A sense of time must therefore be shared by a headend and remote end-user devices. The invention provides for a gigabit media-independent interface in a media access controller to detect start-of-frame delimiters in incoming data. This allows for synchronization of a headend and end-user devices. The invention also allows for phase locking a transmit bit rate, at a headend, to the headend's clock. Transmitted data can the be used downstream to derive a local clock. Synchronization can also be maintained by the use of synchronization bytes in MPEG frames and/or variable length frames. Efficient bandwidth usage can also be facilitated by the use of maximum data units in allocating bandwidth in unsolicited grants, and by allowing flexible fragmentation and/or prioritization of internet protocol (IP) packets.