| 摘要 |
A system which avoids the bandwidth inefficiencies of simply providing multiple separate and independent channels for distributing data services ov er television compatible networks by considering the multiple channels as one u nit and managing them as one unit with an upstream bandwidth management unit. This bandwidth management unit dynamically assigns active users to unused bandwid th among multiple channels. To accomplish this, the bandwidth management unit records each request for channel bandwidth that is made, each request that i s being actively fulfilled, and each request that has been completed. Thus, data ser viceproviders, such as multimedia services, can efficien tly use multiple 6 megahertztelevision network compatible channels to distri bute their data to many requesters/users at high rates of speed over a relatively inexpensive existi ng network. |
