Abstract: A system for providing flexible billing in a cable environment can establish billing practices based on tier level of service, quality of service or the amount of network resources consumed. A plurality of tiers or levels of service can be defined by parameters including at least a maximum or peak bit rate or bandwidth for providing services over a shared channel. A plurality of levels or tiers of services are defined by maximum bandwidth or bit rate and a subscriber receives service at that subscribe-to level or at a slower data rate depending on availability of shared bandwidth. Quality of service is maintaining the specified bandwidth, jitter or delay. The amount of network resources consumed may be expressed in terms of the amount of data transmitted or the connect time of a network access device to the network.

Abstract: A system for providing flexible billing in a cable environment can establish billing practices based on tier level of service, quality of service or the amount of network resources consumed. A plurality of tiers or levels of service can be defined by parameters including at least a maximum or peak bit rate or bandwidth for providing services over a shared channel. A plurality of levels or tiers of services are defined by maximum bandwidth or bit rate and a subscriber receives service at that subscribe-to level or at a slower data rate depending on availability of shared bandwidth. Quality of service is maintaining the specified bandwidth, jitter or delay. The amount of network resources consumed may be expressed in terms of the amount of data transmitted or the connect time of a network access device to the network.

Abstract: In a two way cable system that includes a controller and a plurality of user terminals, a method of granting rights for upstream data transmission from the user terminals includes processing contention requests to generate contention grants and maintaining a list of connections, each connection having specified therefor a predetermined bit rate. The controller sends a downstream data stream to the user terminals and receives an upstream data stream from the user terminals. The downstream data stream includes a plurality of grant fields, and the upstream data stream includes upstream data slots and upstream control slots.

Abstract: A system for providing flexible billing in a cable environment can establish billing practices based on tier level of service, quality of service or the amount of network resources consumed. A plurality of tiers or levels of service can be defined by parameters including at least a maximum or peak bit rate or bandwidth for providing services over a shared channel. A plurality of levels or tiers of services are defined by maximum bandwidth or bit rate and a subscriber receives service at that subscribe-to level or at a slower data rate depending on availability of shared bandwidth. Quality of service is maintaining the specified bandwidth, jitter or delay. The amount of network resources consumed may be expressed in terms of the amount of data transmitted or the connect time of a network access device to the network.

Abstract: In a two way cable system that includes a controller and a plurality of user terminals, a method of granting rights for upstream data transmission from the user terminals includes processing contention requests to generate contention grants and maintaining a list of connections, each connection having specified therefor a predetermined bit rate. The controller sends a downstream data stream to the user terminals and receives an upstream data stream from the user terminals. The downstream data stream includes a plurality of grant fields, and the upstream data stream includes upstream data slots and upstream control slots.

Abstract: A packet communications system provides for point-to-point packet routing and multicast packet routing to limited subsets of nodes in the network, using a routing field in the packet header which is processed according to two different protocols. A third protocol is provided in which a packet can be multicast to the limited subset even when launched from a node which is not a member of the subset. The routing field includes a first portion which contains the route labels necessary to deliver the packet to the multicast subset. A second portion of the routing field contains the multicast subset identifier which can then be used to deliver the packet to all of the members of the multicast subset. Provision is made to backtrack deliver the packet to the last node identified before the multicast subset if that last node is itself a member of the subset.

Abstract: Serial storage interface apparatus for coupling a serial storage mechanism, such as a charge coupled storage device or a magnetic bubble storage device, to a data processor input/output (I/O) bus. Speed control circuitry is provided for causing the serial storage mechanism to operate at a higher speed when the data processor is responding more rapidly to data transfer requests from the interface apparatus and at a lower speed when the data processor is responding less rapidly to data transfer requests from the interface apparatus. This speed adjustment feature reduces the amount of data buffering required for interfacing a serial storage mechanism to an asynchronous variable response time I/O bus system.

Abstract: In a two way cable system that includes a controller and a plurality of user terminals, a method of granting rights for upstream data transmission from the user terminals includes processing contention requests to generate contention grants and maintaining a list of connections, each connection having specified therefor a predetermined bit rate. The controller sends a downstream data stream to the user terminals and receives an upstream data stream from the user terminals. The downstream data stream includes a plurality of grant fields, and the upstream data stream includes upstream data slots and upstream control slots.