Patent ID: 8964786
Filing Date: 2015-02-24
Classification: H04B,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for communicating in a beacon-enabled powerline communication network, said method comprising: performing, by a powerline communication (PLC) data concentrator coupled to a medium voltage (MV) power line, transmitting a message to another PLC data concentrator coupled to the MV power line; receiving, from the another PLC data concentrator, a response to the transmission, the response including an identification of a superframe in use by the another PLC data concentrator; identifying one of a plurality of orthogonal superframes that is different from the superframe in use by the another PLC data concentrator, the identified superframe including beacon slots and contention access period (CAP) slots, the beacon slots following a sequence of two or more frequency subbands and the CAP slots following the same sequence of two or more frequency subbands, the sequence of two or more frequency subbands being distinct from other sequences of two or more frequency subbands followed by other beacon slots and CAP slots within others of the plurality of orthogonal superframes; and communicating with the another PLC data concentrator using the identified superframe, wherein the orthogonality of frequencies transmitted concurrently by different coordinators at the same time to enable parallel communications.