A system for increasing bandwidth to a communication device, comprising:a packet scheduler; and a transmitter; the system configured to operate the packet scheduler to schedule packets of a service flow onto multiple media access control (MAC) channels forming a MAC channel group before operating the transmitter to send the scheduled packets from an origination device toward a destination device, the packet scheduler waiting a maximum group cross channel skew time for an out-of sequence packet, the maximum group cross channel skew time a maximum of multiple pair cross channel skew times, one pair cross channel skew time associated with each pair grouping of MAC channels configured to be formed from the MAC channel group; and the system configured with a setting to allow only a single channel of the multiple channels of the MAC channel group to carry DOCSIS messages, and to override the setting to share at least some of the channels of the MAC channel group among multiple cable modems while the MAC channel group forms a bonded channel.