Patent ID: 8149703

Claim:
A method of performing flow control in a network, comprising: a node in a network of nodes detecting receipt of a jam-indicating packet from a bridge device in response to an attempt by the node to transmit a frame to the bridge device, wherein the jam-indicating packet has a generally unique content that is recognizable by nodes as an indication that a device on the network is congested and requests that it not be sent further packets; in response to detection of the jam-indicating packet by the node, causing a fail response to be transmitted by the node to the network for the frame; and for a predetermined time interval after the detection, causing another fail response to be transmitted by the node to the network for any subsequent frames transmitted by any of the other nodes when such frames are of the type for which a response is expected, wherein the fail response transmitted in response to receipt of the jam-indicating packet is the same fail response ordinarily transmitted, at times other than when a device on the network is congested, to indicate that a frame has not been received because of insufficient resources, wherein the network is a powerline network, and the fail response is transmitted to the powerline network.