Patent ID: 7613823

Claim:
A method for providing access to a communications medium, the communications medium being suitable for allowing use of Home Phoneline Network Association (HPNA) v2-formatted frames, each HPNA v2-formatted frame being timed to allow a plurality of physical layer priority level slots, the method comprising steps of: maintaining a list of sessions in enhanced stations (STAs) using the communications medium, each enhanced STA being one of a Media Control Station (MC STA) and a non-Media Control Station (Non-MC STA), and each enhanced STA gaining access to the communications medium in a centralized manner, at least one enhanced STA adapted to always choose a Backoff Signal Slot 0 of an HPNA v2 frame during contention resolution with an HPNA v2 station, the Backoff Signal Slot 0 is one of only three Backoff Signal Slots specified under HPNA v2 for use in contention resolution after a collision; and transmitting a message from the Media Control Station (MC STA) to at least one selected non-MC STA using the communications medium, the transmitted message being transmitted with a highest physical layer priority level available in a first HPNA v2-formatted frame.