Method and apparatus for LDPC transmission over a channel bonded link

1. A multimedia over coaxial cable communication network comprising:

a transmitting node; and

a network coordinator (NC) node,

wherein:

the transmitting node is operable to, at least, transmit a resource reservation request to the NC node, the resource reservation request comprising a first field indicating a requested bandwidth for transmitting a data unit on a plurality of bonded channels;

the NC node is operable to, at least:

receive the resource reservation request from the transmitting node; and

if an amount of available bandwidth is less than the requested bandwidth, then:

assign an allocation of bandwidth to the transmitting node that is less than the requested bandwidth, wherein the allocation of bandwidth is for communicating a first fragment of the data unit on the plurality of bonded channels; and

transmit a Media Access Plan (MAP) message indicating the allocation of bandwidth to the transmitting node; and

the transmitting node is operable to, at least:

receive the MAP message from the NC; and

if the allocated bandwidth is less than the requested bandwidth, then:

fragment the data unit into a plurality of fragmented data units; and

for each fragmented data unit of the plurality of fragmented data units:

 calculate, for each of the bonded channels, a respective FEC padding value and a respective payload parameter; and

 encode and transmit the fragmented data unit on the bonded channels using the respective FEC padding values and the respective payload parameters.

2. The communication network of claim 1 , wherein the NC node is operable to, if the amount of available bandwidth is less than the requested bandwidth, then determine a remaining amount of bandwidth for communicating a remainder of the data unit on the plurality of bonded channels.

3. The communication network of claim 2 , wherein the NC node is operable to determine the remaining amount of bandwidth by, at least in part, operating to determine a remaining amount of bytes, including additional overhead bytes related to splitting the data unit across multiple channels and across multiple time periods.

4. The communication network of claim 1 , wherein the resource reservation request comprises a second field comprising a padding byte summation value comprising a summation of, for each bonded channel of the plurality of bonded channels, a respective number of forward error correction (FEC) padding bytes for transmitting a respective portion of the data unit on said each bonded channel.

5. A network node for use in a multimedia over coaxial cable communication network comprising a network coordinator (NC) node, the network node operable to at least:

transmit a resource reservation request to the NC node, the resource reservation request comprising:

a first field indicating a requested bandwidth for transmitting a data unit on a plurality of bonded channels; and

a second field comprising a padding byte summation value comprising a summation of, for each bonded channel of the plurality of bonded channels, a respective number of forward error correction (FEC) padding bytes for transmitting a respective portion of the data unit on said each bonded channel;

receive a message from the NC node, the message indicating an allocated bandwidth for transmitting the data unit on the plurality of bonded channels; and

if the allocated bandwidth is less than the requested bandwidth, then:

fragment the data unit into a plurality of fragmented data units; and

for each fragmented data unit of the plurality of fragmented data units:

calculate, for each of the bonded channels, a respective FEC padding value and a respective payload parameter; and

encode and transmit the fragmented data unit on the bonded channels using the respective FEC padding value and the respective payload parameter.

6. The network node of claim 5 , wherein the network node is operable to, if the allocated bandwidth is at least the requested bandwidth, then encode and transmit the data unit on the bonded channels using, for each of the bonded channels, a respective FEC parameter value, a respective payload parameter value, and a respective padding parameter value.

7. The network node of claim 5 , wherein the first field indicating a requested bandwidth comprises information specifying a number of time slots.

8. The network node of claim 5 , wherein the message received from the NC node comprises a Media Access Plan (MAP) message.

9. The network node of claim 5 , wherein the plurality of bonded channels comprises only a primary channel and a secondary channel.

10. The network node of claim 5 , wherein the network node is operable to request the bandwidth for transmitting the data unit on the plurality of bonded channels only when a destination node for the data unit is capable of receiving the data unit over the plurality of bonded channels.

11. The network node of claim 5 , wherein the network node is operable to request the bandwidth for transmitting the data unit on the plurality of bonded channels only when the data unit is to be unicast.

12. The network node of claim 5 , wherein the communication network is a premises-based coaxial cable network.

13. A network coordinator (NC) node for use in a multimedia over coaxial cable communication network comprising a second node, the NC node operable to at least:

receive a resource reservation request from the second node, the resource reservation request comprising:

a first field indicating a requested bandwidth for transmitting a data unit on a plurality of bonded channels; and

a second field comprising a padding byte summation value comprising a summation of, for each bonded channel of the plurality of bonded channels, a respective number of forward error correction (FEC) padding bytes for transmitting a respective portion of the data unit on said each bonded channel;

if an amount of available bandwidth is less than the requested bandwidth, then:

assign an allocation of bandwidth to the second node that is less than the requested bandwidth, wherein the allocation of bandwidth is for communicating a first fragment of the data unit on the plurality of bonded channels;

transmit a message indicating the allocation of bandwidth to the second node; and

determine a remaining amount of bandwidth for communicating a remainder of the data unit on the plurality of bonded channels.

14. The network coordinator node of claim 13 , wherein the NC node is operable to determine the remaining amount of bandwidth by, at least in part, operating to determine a remaining amount of bytes, including additional overhead byes related to splitting the data unit.

15. The network coordinator node of claim 14 , wherein the additional overhead bytes comprise first additional overhead bytes related to splitting the data unit across two channels and second overhead bytes related to splitting the data unit across multiple time periods.

16. The network coordinator node of claim 14 , wherein the NC node is operable to determine the remaining amount of bandwidth by, at least in part, operating further to determine a number of symbols necessary to transmit the remaining amount of bytes.

17. The network coordinator node of claim 13 , wherein the NC node is operable to, if there is no available bandwidth to allocate to the second node for transmitting the data unit, then ignore the received resource reservation request.

18. The network coordinator node of claim 13 , wherein the NC node is operable to, if there is enough available bandwidth to allocate the requested bandwidth to the second node, then allocate the requested bandwidth to the second node.

19. The network coordinator node of claim 13 , wherein the NC node is operable to allocate the requested bandwidth for transmitting the data unit on the plurality of bonded channels only when the data unit is to be unicast.

20. The network coordinator node of claim 13 , wherein the transmitted message indicating the allocation of bandwidth to the second node comprises a Media Allocation Plan (MAP) message.