Abstract: A system and method for improved upstream data transmission. In an embodiment, a cable modem includes a transceiver configured for transmitting data upstream once permission is granted. In between times when permission to transmit is granted, however, the cable modem is configured to prepare as much data as possible for immediate upstream transmission once that very permission is granted. Thus, prior to permission being granted, the cable modem assembles (pre-processes) the data into transmit frames such that the data frames may be stored in a local memory coupled to the transceiver in a “ready-to-go” format. In this manner, the entire amount of time/bandwidth allocated to the cable modem in response to its request for upstream data transmission may be dedicated to actually transmitting data upstream as opposed to consuming time and bandwidth processing the data into data frames after upstream data transmission has been granted.

Abstract: A system and method suited for improved overall data transmission having a hardware-based transceiver configured for transmitting upstream data with suppressed data packets. In TCP sessions between devices, a server seeks an “acknowledgement” that the downstream data transmission has been received by a client. Some data packets sent upstream may contain only TCP acknowledgement data and therefore may be combined with other purely TCP acknowledgement data packets in order to reduce the impact of the TCP acknowledgement packets on the overall upstream data throughput. In addition, this results in increased TCP performance in the downstream transmission direction as well because the algorithm enables replacing earlier arriving ACK packets with later arriving ACK packets which allows the device to send all TCP ACK information known to the suppressor at the earliest possible time.