A method, performed by a node, of provisioning a plurality of cable modems connected to the node, the method including: recording a respective transmit power level for each cable modem of the plurality of cable modems; determining a first set of the plurality of cable modems that can be allocated to a specified frequency band available for upstream communications according to an aggregation of the transmit power levels of the first set of the plurality of cable modems; and provisioning each cable modem of the first set to use at least a portion of the specified frequency.