Intellon Corporation

Qualcomm Incorporated

Atheros Communications, Inc.

Qualcomm Atheros Inc.

Stanley Joseph Kostoff, Ii

William E Earnshaw

Lawrence W Yonge, Iii

James Philip Patella

Brian E Markwalter

Srinivas Katar

Bart W Blanchard

Timothy Robert Gargrave

Manjunath Anandarama Krishnam

Ehab Tahir

Celestino Anastasio Corral

Gregory Allen Magin

Hao Zhu

John Fraser Chappel

Syed Adil Hussain

Harper Brent Mashburn

Wayne Daniel

Michael B Ryan

Hassan Kaywan Afkhamie

Treina Cresse

William Winston Williams

Maulik Bhatt

A method of operating in a network in which a plurality of stations communicate over a shared medium, comprising providing a physical layer (e.g., PHY) for handling physical communication over the shared medium; providing a high level layer (e.g., PAL) that receives data from the station and supplies high level data units (e.g., MSDUs) for transmission over the medium; providing a MAC layer that receives the high level data units from the high level layer and supplies low level data units (e.g., MPDUs) to the physical layer; at the MAC layer, encapsulating content from a plurality of the high level data units; dividing the encapsulated content into a plurality of pieces (e.g., segments) with each piece capable of being independently retransmitted; and supplying low level data units containing one or more of the plurality of pieces.

Medium access control layer that encapsulates data from a plurality of received data units into a plurality of independently transmittable blocks

Dynamic channel reuse in multi-access communication systems. A first station in a communication network may receive a transmission over a communication medium. The first station may generate a reuse determination based on information from the received transmission. The reuse determination may be usable with at least one other reuse determination to coordinate reuse of the communication medium.

Dynamic channel reuse in multi-access communication systems

Communicating between stations over a shared medium includes: monitoring the shared medium for signals received at a first station that is identified with a local network; storing information at the first station that represents characteristics of the signals received at the first station associated with capacity of the shared medium; monitoring the shared medium for signals received at a second station that is identified with the same local network as the first station; storing information at the second station that represents characteristics of the signals received at the second station associated with capacity of the shared medium; and determining whether a stream of data is allowed to be transmitted over the shared medium between the first station and the second station based on at least one of the stored information from the first station and the stored information from the second station.

Managing communications over a shared medium

Powerline communication networks can be subject to burst interference resulting in loss of throughput and data corruption. A transmitting network device and a receiving network device of a powerline communication network can be configured to select a best performing powerline terminal coupling configuration for powerline communications. The transmitting network device can determine performance measurements associated with each of a plurality of powerline communication channels. The transmitting network device can select a best performing powerline communication channel based on the performance measurements, and can provide an indication of the best performing powerline communication channel to the receiving network device. The transmitting and the receiving network devices can each configure their respective terminal connections to switch to the best performing powerline communication channel. Subsequent communications between the transmitting and the receiving network devices can be initiated via the best performing powerline communication channel.

Terminal selection diversity for powerline communications

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

Media Access Control (MAC) layer transmit and receive buffering with multi-level prioritization. The receive buffering allocates receive buffers for receiving frame data from a PHY interface in priority order using both a static and dynamic buffer allocation, and delivers completed buffers queued in a multi-level priority queue to a host interface highest priority first. The transmit buffering delivers completed buffers queued in a multi-level priority queue to the PHY interface in priority order. When the multi-level priority queue contains a buffer that is higher priority than one being prepared for transmit, a priority-based interruption causes the transmit processing of the buffer to be suspended at its current state with the higher priority buffer taking its place. Upon completion of the higher priority buffer, the suspended buffer is resumed at its current state.

Communication buffer scheme optimized for VoIP, QoS and data networking over a power line

A method of operating in a network (e.g., a power line communication network) in which a plurality of stations communicate over a shared medium (e.g., an AC power line) having a periodically varying channel. The method includes determining a plurality of channel adaptations (e.g., tone maps) for communication between a pair of stations, and assigning a different one of the plurality of channel adaptations to each of a plurality of phase regions of the periodically varying channel.

Channel adaptation synchronized to periodically varying channel

A method of operating in a network in which stations communicate over a shared medium is described. The method provides regularly repeated contention free intervals, CSMA communication during times outside the contention free intervals, and distributed control over the initiation and makeup of the contention free intervals to a plurality of stations so that any of the plurality of stations can independently initiate transmission within the contention free interval.

Contention-free access intervals on a CSMA network

A Media Access Control (MAC) protocol scheme for binding a response to a frame that requested the response. The response specifies a portion of the frame check sequence contained in the frame. The specified portion of the frame check sequence serves to identify the response as belonging to that frame.

Mechanism for using a quasi-addressed response to bind to a message requesting the response

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 transmit process that limits the time during which a reduced network bandwidth exists between two powerline nodes because a receiving node fails to respond to frame transmission attempts by a transmitting node is described. The transmit process restricts the number of retries that occur in a lower date rate transmission mode and, for a predetermined time period to follow, drops all subsequent frames destined for the non-responding node.

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Ocala, FL, United States of America

Stanley Joseph Kostoff, Ii