Patent ID: 7606930

Claim:
A method for providing access to a telephone-wire-based communications medium, the communications medium being suitable for allowing use of a plurality of Home Phoneline Network (HPN) frames, the method comprising the steps of: transmitting the plurality of HPN frames on the communications medium, each pair of HPN frames having timing to allow an Inter-Frame Gap (IFG) having a duration greater than zero microseconds, the IFG comprising a blocking signal adapted to prevent a Home Phoneline Network Association (HPNA) v2 station (v2 STA) device from recognizing the IFG; wherein each blocking frame comprised by the plurality of HPN frames is assigned a highest HPNA priority that is available in an HPNA v2 frame, each of a Media Control Station (MC STA) device and a non-Media Control Station (non-MC STA) device having different pre-assigned Contention Resolution Protocol slots that have access priority over the v2 STA; at least one of the MC STA and the non-MC STA is adapted to always choose a Backoff Signal Slot 0 of an HPNA v2 frame during contention resolution with the v2 STA, 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; transmitting a message from a MC STA to at least one selected non-MC STA when the HPN frames are transmitted; and receiving a reply message to the transmitted message at the MC STA from a selected non-MC STA when the HPN frames are transmitted.