Patent ID: 8498294

Claim:
A Broadband Coaxial Network (BCN) modem having a transmitter capable of transmitting packets to a plurality of nodes in a broadband cable network, the transmitter comprising: a MAC subsystem capable of providing packets for transmission within the broadband cable network; a Modem subsystem in signal communication with the MAC subsystem, the Modem subsystem capable of receiving the packets from the MAC subsystem and appending information to the packets; and RF subsystem in signal communication with the Modem subsystem, capable of receiving the packets from the Modem subsystem and upconverting the packets received from the Modem subsystem; wherein at least one of the packets is a Beacon packet having at least eight fields selected from a group of fields consisting of channel number field, change field, sequence number field, network information field, network coordinator ID field, Next beacon index field, admission frame length field, asynchronous MAP length field, isochronous MAP length field, admission/robust window bit-loading profile field, admission contention index field, and a beacon CRC field; wherein the network coordinator ID field identifies a network coordinator that transmits media access plan packets that convey information about scheduled transmissions on a medium; and wherein if the BCN modem is started and it does not detect a control channel with a network coordinator then it assumes the role of a network coordinator.