This disclosure provides systems, methods and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for communication time slot allocation in a communication network. In one aspect, a first network device may determine that a second network device will transmit one or more packets associated with a first latency, and determine that a third network device will transmit one or more packets associated with a second latency. The first network device may determine to allocate a greater quantity of communication time slots to the second network device than to the third network device based, at least in part, on the first latency being less than the second latency. The first network device may allocate a first plurality of communication time slots of a beacon period to the second network device, and allocate a second plurality of communication time slots of the beacon period to the third network device.

A network device may transmit a short packet when the length of application data that will be transmitted does not exceed a threshold length. In some embodiments, the network device may transmit the application data in a frame control field of the short packet. The short packet may not include a payload field.

Representative implementations of devices and techniques provide communication between networked nodes operating on a communication network medium. In an implementation, a node generates a broadcast frame that includes at least a preamble and a payload. The preamble of the broadcast frame may include auxiliary information. The auxiliary information may be associated with one or more symbols of the preamble. The auxiliary information may contain power boost information.

In a disclosed embodiment, a power line communication (PLC) device sends an active channel scan request from a host layer to an adaptation layer. In response to the adaptation layer receiving the request, a MAC layer is instructed to broadcast a beacon request frame. The PLC device receives from each of one or more neighboring devices that respond to the beacon request frame a beacon frame including an address and a personal area network (PAN) identifier. A listing of PAN identifiers indicated by the beacon frames is provided to the host layer. The host layer selects a target network corresponding to a selected PAN identifier and selects one of the one or more neighboring devices associated with the selected PAN identifier as a target bootstrapping agent. The host layer instructs the adaptation layer to join the target network using the target bootstrapping agent.

A method of encoding a first bit and a second bit for transmission on a transmission band is provided. The method includes: mapping, via a mapping component, the first bit and the second bit into a first symbol; mapping, via the mapping component, the first bit and the second bit into a second symbol; dividing, via a dividing component, the transmission band into subcarriers; allocating, via an allocating component, the first symbol to a first subcarrier of the subcarriers; allocating, via the allocating component, the second symbol to a second subcarrier of the subcarriers; and differentially encoding, via a differential encoder, the first symbol and the second symbol.

A method of powerline communications in a powerline communications (PLC) network including a first node and at least a second node. The first node transmits a data frame to the second node over a PLC channel. The second node has a data buffer for storing received information. The second node runs a flow control algorithm which determines a current congestion condition or a projected congestion condition of the data buffer based on at least one congestion parameter. The current congestion condition and projected congestion condition include nearly congested and fully congested. When the current or projected congestion condition is either nearly congested or fully congested, the second node transmits a BUSY including frame over the PLC channel to at least the first node. The first node defers transmitting of any frames to the second node for a congestion clearing wait time.

Transmission over a communication channel using carrier sense multiple access collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) may be performed by determining for each frame if the communication channel is busy after a backoff time proportional to a randomly generated number within a contention window (CW). When the channel is not busy, a frame of data may be transmitted. When the channel is busy, the device may periodically determine if the communication channel is busy after subsequent backoff times. The value of CW is adjusted for each subsequent backoff time using a fairness protocol, in which the value of CW is increased until the value of CW reaches a maximum CW value; and then the value of CW is held until a fairness number of backoff repetitions reaches a fairness threshold; then the value of CW is reduced incrementally until the value of CW reaches a minimum CW value.

A home network topology identification method, wherein the home network (10; 11) has a plurality of network devices (27, 28, 29) with a residential gateway (23) among them, the method comprises the following steps: (1a) obtain at least one home network parameter from at least one of the network devices (27, 28, 29); (1b) obtain a network channel gain function (CGF) of the home network (10; 11) from one of the network devices (27, 28, 29); (1c) transform the channel gain function (CGF) into the time domain to obtain an equivalent estimated channel delay spread function (CDS); (1d) obtain an estimated blind network topology from the estimated channel delay spread function (CDS) and a propagation speed of the network; and (1e) correlate the estimated blind network topology with the at least one home network parameter to obtain at least one structural network topology parameter; and
a management center device (25) that is remote from a home network (10; 11) having a plurality of network devices (27, 28, 29) with a residential gateway (23) among them, wherein the management center device (25) is provided to carry out steps (1a) to (1e) of the method.

Described herein are apparatuses and methods for providing communication in multiple frequencies in a multiband Ethernet over Coax (EoC) system. An exemplary apparatus comprises a transceiver for transmitting or receiving a first data packet on a first channel associated with a first frequency, and a transmitter for transmitting a second data packet on at least one second channel associated with at least one second frequency.

Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, receiving wirelessly a first transmission of data from a network interface device, wherein the network interface device includes a receiver and a transmitter. The network interface device receives, via the receiver, electromagnetic waves that propagate on a surface of a dielectric transmission medium. The network interface device converts, via the receiver, the electromagnetic waves to an electrical signal, and transmits, via the transmitter, a first transmission of the data based on the electrical signal. A determination is made that the data is to be directed towards a recipient device connected to at least one electrical circuit and, based on the determination, a second transmission of the data is initiated as a power line communication transmission of a utility power line via the at least one electrical circuit. Other embodiments are disclosed.