Patent ID: 7463877

Claim:
A power line communication (PLC) bridge circuit, comprising: a plurality of branch power line circuits branching from a main power line circuit; a main coupler that couples data signals to and from the power line circuit to and from each of the branch power line circuits, wherein alternating current power is provided to the main power line through a watt-hour meter; a main blocking filter that prevents signals in a frequency range of the data signals from reaching the watt-hour meter; a first and a second branch coupler that couples data signals to and from first and second ones of the branch power line circuits; a first and a second branch blocking filter that prevents signals in the frequency range of the data signals from entering or exiting the first and second branch power line circuits respectively; a first communication transceiver connected to the first branch coupler for transferring data signals to and from the first branch coupler; a second communication transceiver connected to the second branch coupler for transferring data signals to and from the second branch coupler; a controller that examines data signals from the first transceiver and determines if the data is destined for the second transceiver, wherein data that is not destined for the second transceiver is considered local data; the controller further examines data signals from the second transceiver and determines if the data is destined for the first transceiver, wherein data that is not destined for the first transceiver is also considered local data; bridging means for passing data signals between the first communication transceiver and the second transceiver when the controller determines that the data is not local, and for not passing data signals between the first communication transceiver and the second communication transceiver when the controller determines that the data is local; and wherein the controller and the bridging means are housed within a housing that contains a circuit breaker.