Chapter 22: Channel Bonding
STANDARD Revision 1.0
C4® CMTS Release 8.3 User Guide
© 2016 ARRIS Enterprises LLC. All Rights Reserved.
687
It is important to keep in mind that the E6000 CER first assigns a super-set of downstreams to the modem at registration
time, which is called the Receive Channel Set and is identical to the Receive Channel Configuration. After the RCC is
assigned to the modem, downstream service flows are assigned to groups of downstreams, which is known as a
downstream bonding group. The downstream bonding groups are subsets of the modem’s RCC, and can also be equal to
the RCC. If the user has dynamic bonding groups turned on, the E6000 CER will choose the downstream bonding groups
and assign them to service flows. If the user has static bonding groups configured and dynamic bonding group turned off,
the E6000 will use only those configured static bonding groups for downstream service flows. The RCC may still be quite
large even if the static bonding groups are small, as the RCC is the superset of all downstreams the modem is allowed to
use while operational.
Applications may utilize a dynamic service flow request model. Since the service flow requirements for these services are
not known at the time that the CM registers, the CM channel assignment algorithm does not have the information
necessary to properly plan for these services. With this in mind, ARRIS recommends that when supporting an application
that uses dynamic service such as IPTV to create flows, the operator should not enable dynamic RCCs but instead should
create static RCCs that include the channels that are targeted to be used for the dynamic service. Similarly, in order for a
dynamic service to utilize a bonding group, it is recommended that the user configure the bonding group while also
remembering to set the bonding group's attribute mask appropriately. The C4/c CMTS flow assignment algorithm will then
use the required and forbidden attribute masks of the request to determine to which channels to assign the flow.
Note: The C4/c CMTS supports up to 24 downstream bonded channels and up to 8 upstream bonded channels.
Provisioned RCC Candidates
When searching for candidate RCCs, the chassis looks for provisioned RCCs which meet these criteria:
Proper MAC domain
Match RCP-ID
All channels must be contained within the MD-DS-SG
Dynamic RCC Candidates
If so provisioned, the C4/c CMTS might also create dynamic RCC candidates for known RCPs. To do so, the C4/c CMTS
searches for combinations of channels within the MD-CM-SG which satisfy the constraints of the RCP. At least one
downstream channel of each RCC candidate must be primary capable.