Patent ID: 8767767

Claim:
A communication network comprising: a communication medium; and a plurality of nodes, each node configured to communicate with the other nodes via the communication medium using a protocol that has a preamble period prior to start of transmission of a frame; wherein at least one node of the plurality of nodes is configured to transmit an out-of-band signal during the preamble period; wherein the at least one node is configured to modify at least a portion of the out-of-band signal to communicate data to at least one other node; wherein the modified out-of-band signal transmitted during the preamble period comprises an initial portion, a middle portion, and an end portion; the initial portion and the end portion comprising one or more reserved values based on the protocol's encoding rules; wherein the middle portion is modified to communicate data without using the reserved values of the initial portion or the end portion; wherein the at least one other node is configured to interpret the modified portion of the out-of-band signal to identify the data communicated in the modified out-of-band signal; wherein the modified out-of-band signal complies with the protocol's encoding rules such that any node not configured to interpret the modified portion of the out-of-band signal processes the modified out-of-band signal according to the protocol.