| 主权项 |
1. A method for providing agency bandwidth guarantees and protections between communication devices associated with agencies sharing an agency-shared data channel that is divided into reserved access slots and into random access slots for requesting assignment of one or more of the reserved access slots, the method comprising:
configuring, at a scheduling component, initial reserved bandwidth allocations for communication devices associated with each agency permitted access to reserved access slots on the agency-shared data channel, the initial reserved bandwidth allocations providing guaranteed and protected agency bandwidth to communication devices associated with one or more agencies sharing the agency-shared data channel on an agency by agency basis in accordance with the initial reserved bandwidth allocations; when sufficient bandwidth, including the initial reserved bandwidth allocations, is available on the agency-shared data channel to meet all bandwidth requests from all communication devices associated with all agencies requesting reserved access slot allocations on the agency-shared data channel, allowing, by the scheduling component, communication devices access to any available random access slot on the agency-shared data channel, wherein upon accessing a scheduled random access slot a communication device associated with an agency is able to reserve reserved access slots on the agency-shared data channel for data transmission regardless of the guaranteed and protected agency bandwidth granted by the initial reserved bandwidth allocations; and when one or more requests for additional reserved access slots on the agency-shared data channel from one or more communication devices associated with one or more of the agencies cannot be fulfilled due to insufficient available reserved access slots on the agency-shared data channel, responsively:
enabling, at the scheduling component, bandwidth management controls by controlling access to the agency-shared data channel by distributing, at the scheduling component, limited access permissions for future available random access slots to communication devices associated with agencies according to the initial reserved bandwidth allocations so as to enforce the guaranteed and protected agency bandwidth granted by the initial reserved bandwidth allocations; anda predetermined period of time after enabling bandwidth management controls, subsequently distributing updated limited access permissions for future random access slots according to a determined agency usage on the agency-shared data channel over the predetermined prior period of time such that random access slots reserved in accordance with the initial reserved bandwidth allocations for agencies determined to not be using their initial reserved bandwidth allocations over the predetermined period of time are subsequently temporarily re-assigned to other agencies. |
