Patent ID: 7369579

Claim:
A method for transmitting power line communications (“PLC”) signals in a PLC system including a head-end PLC transceiver coupled to a plurality of remote PLC transceivers over utility electric power conveying media, the method comprising: establishing a timing controlled PLC data signal communications frame having a predetermined duration, wherein the timing frame includes a downstream time slot assigned for transmission of PLC data signals from the head-end to at least of one of the remotes and at least one upstream time slot assigned for transmission of PLC data signals from at least one of the remotes to the head-end; selectively allocating a first portion of the duration of the timing frame to the downstream time slot and a second portion of the duration to the at least one upstream time slot; transmitting the frame onto the PLC system at predetermined intervals; and transmitting PLC signals between the head-end and at least one of the remotes in accordance with the timing frame, comprising isolating the plurality of remote PLC transceivers from each other during the at least one upstream time slot to prevent any of the plurality of remote PLC transceivers from detecting and decoding content from any other of the remote PLC transceivers, wherein isolating the plurality of remote PLC transceivers from each other during the at least one upstream time slot comprises, for each of the plurality of remote PLC transceivers, using a different combination of one or more carriers and one or more symbol lengths for transmitting PLC signals to the head-end PLC transceiver.