Patent ID: 8792567

Claim:
A method of powerline communications between a plurality of nodes on a powerline communications (PLC) channel including a first node and a second node, comprising: determining at least one communication quality measure for said PLC channel; based on said communication quality measure, including at least one of a channel response of said PLC channel and a noise profile of said PLC channel, dynamically switching a preamble of a data frame between a reference preamble having a reference symbol length including a reference number of syncP symbols and a reference number of syncM symbols and at least a first extended preamble having an extended symbol length that is greater than (>) said reference symbol length, wherein: if said channel response is greater than or equal to (≧) a predetermined channel response threshold indicating a good response and said noise profile is less than or equal to (≦) a predetermined noise threshold indicating acceptable noise, said reference preamble is selected, and if at least one of said channel response is less than (<) said predetermined channel response threshold indicating a poor response and said noise profile is greater than (>) said predetermined noise threshold indicating unacceptable noise, said first extended preamble is selected having an extended number of said syncP symbols which provides X symbols greater than (>) said reference number of said syncP symbols; and transmitting said data frame on said PLC channel.