Intellon Corporation

Atheros Communications, Inc.

Qualcomm Atheros Inc.

Qualcomm Incorporated

Brian E Markwalter

Stanley Joseph Kostoff, Ii

William E Earnshaw

James Philip Patella

Lawrence W Yonge, Iii

Lawrence W Yonge

Stanley J Kostoff

Lawrence W Yonge Iii

Lawrence W Iii Yonge

Stanley J Ii Kostoff

James Phillip Patella

Stanley J Kostoff Ii

In a powerline network, a power line node device coupled to a host bridge application detects a 'jam packet' in response to an attempt to pass a frame to the host bridge application. The powerline node device uses internal logic to override a conventional ARQ response to this and subsequent frames, in particular, when such frames are of the type for which a response is expected, with an automatic FAIL response for a predetermined time interval.

Powerline network bridging congestion control

An access contention scheme is described for use by a station in a network of stations. Access contention by a station having a frame to be transmitted includes detecting contention control information for a contention period and determining from the contention control information if the station is permitted to contend for access to a transmission medium to which the stations are connected during the contention period. When a contention control indicator is detected for a contention period, a station having a frame to transmit determines from the contention control indicator if it is permitted to contend for access to the transmission medium during the contention period.

Media access control protocol with priority and contention-free intervals

An access contention scheme having both multi-level priorities and a contention-free access indicator for use by a station in a network of stations. When a contention control indicator is detected for a contention period, a station having a frame to transmit determines from the contention control indicator if it is permitted to contend for access to the transmission medium during the contention period. The station determines if the contention control indicator indicates a contention-free access and, if the contention control information indicates a contention-free access, the station determines if a channel access priority level associated with the frame to be transmitted is higher than a channel access priority level associated with a last transmitted frame. If the channel access priority level associated with the frame to be transmitted is higher, the station detects whether any station in the network of stations intends to contend for access to the medium at a channel access priority level that is higher than the channel access priority level associated with the frame to be transmitted. If so, the station defers contention for access. Each station listens for channel access priority levels of other stations and may signal its own channel access priority level during a priority resolution period preceding the contention period. The channel access priority is signaled as a two bit value and the priority resolution period includes two priority resolution slots corresponding to the two bit value and is used to separate higher channel access priority values from lower channel access priority values.

A rate-adaptive mechanism for optimizing transmitter/receiver connections on a carrier-by-carrier basis for maximum date rate based on channel attributes for that connection and direction. Channel information is produced by a channel adaptation process based on channel characteristics and is stored in both transmitter and receiver as a channel map with an associated a channel map index for channel map look-up. The channel map index for a channel map used to modulate a payload of a frame is conveyed by transmitter to receiver in the frame so that the receiver is able to select the correct channel map for demodulation.

Method and protocol to adapt each unique connection in a multi-node network to a maximum data rate

A scheme for bounding latency of transmissions for QoS in network stations operating in shared medium access network. The length of segment burst transmissions are limited by allowing the segment burst transmission of a given priority to be interrupted by higher priority traffic. Restrictions are placed on frame length for transmissions of all priority levels or, alternatively, at all but the highest of the priority levels.

Segment bursting with priority pre-emption and reduced latency

A CSMA Media Access Control (MAC) scheme for supporting both centralized and distributed shared medium access control in a CSMA network. A master device exchanges connection control messages with a slave during using contention-oriented access to establish a connection and a session of periodic contention-free intervals. Once the session is established, the contention-free intervals alternate with contention-oriented intervals according to the timing parameters specified by the connection control messages. Each of the contention-free intervals is divided into slots, the master transmitting in a downstream frame and the slave device transmitting an upstream frame in a following slot if the downstream frame indicates a source address matching that of the master device, a contention-free access at a highest priority and a connection number corresponding to the connection established between the master device and the slave device, thus downstream frame thus serving to poll the slave device and trigger the slave device's upstream frame. Master control is passed from one device to another device during the contention-free interval using additional control information, more specifically, a master flag for indicating which device has master control and a control flag for indicating the direction in which master control is being passed. Arrangements to change session parameters or change session control are made using connection control messages using contention-oriented access. Session control is passed from one device to another during a contention-free interval following the exchange of appropriate connection control messages between the devices.

Method and protocol to support contention-free intervals and QoS in a CSMA network

A source-aware bridging scheme for supporting bridging between a noisy (&ldquo;unreliable&rdquo;) network and another, reliable network. Each device connected to the medium of the unreliable network includes a source-aware MAC that maintains a Bridge Proxy Destination Address list (BPDAlist) of all destination addresses that reside on the other network and are reached by a bridge. The BPDAlist information can be learned by the source-aware MAC during a frame receive and/or received during a channel estimation cycle. The list associates destination addresses with the address of the particular bridge through which the destination addresses are accessed. The bridge serves as a proxy with respect to those destination addresses and thus maintains its own list of the destination addresses for which it serves as proxy, or, IAPlist. The IAPlist can be learned, or passed down to the source-aware MAC from a learning bridge process or from the local host to which the device is coupled. The source-aware MAC in each device, including the bridge, supports bridge proxy processing functions. If the device receives a frame intended for transmit and the destination address is a bridged address (that is, is included in the BPDAlist, the bridge proxy processing replaces the destination address with the appropriate bridge address and encapsulates the frame with bridge information that enables the bridge to reconstruct the original frame. If the device is a bridge, the processing replaces the source address with the address of the bridge and updates the IAPlist with the source address. If a frame with bridge information is received from the medium, the bridge proxy processing restores the frame from the bridge information and may use the bridge information to update the BPDAlist.

Growing community of inventors

Ocala, FL, United States of America

Brian E Markwalter