| CPC H04L 1/203 (2013.01) [H04L 12/2801 (2013.01); H04L 27/34 (2013.01); H04W 28/04 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |

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1. A method comprising:
assigning each of a plurality of cable modems to its own cluster; and
incrementally reducing the number of clusters by sequentially combining two of said number of clusters until the number of clusters is reduced to a desired number of clusters;
determining a set of bitloading profiles using the desired number of clusters;
allocating the bitloading profiles among the plurality of cable modems; and
communicating with the plurality of cable modems using the allocated bitloading profiles.
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