Patent ID: 8570999

Claim:
A system, comprising: a smart grid wireless component; a power line communication component configured to interface with power lines; a conversion component communicatively coupled to the smart grid wireless component and the power line communication component and performs at least unidirectional conversion of a packet between smart grid wireless and a power line communication standards, wherein the conversion employs only MAC addresses for addressing, wherein the conversion component comprises a processor configured to detect a MAC address of a received packet and process the received packet according to the detection, wherein the conversion component further comprises a memory configured to store the received packet, the system further comprises a bus coupled to the processor, the memory, a MAC layer of the smart grid wireless component and a MAC layer of the power line communication component, the processor detects a MAC address of a received power line communication packet when the received power line communication packet is in the bus or the MAC layer of the power line communication component, the processor detects a MAC address of a received smart grid wireless packet when the received smart grid wireless packet is in the bus or the MAC layer of the smart grid wireless component, wherein the memory is further configured to store a table retaining a smart grid wireless MAC address and a power line communication MAC address for each power line communication device and each smart grid wireless device in a network, wherein the processor processes the packet by comparing a destination MAC address of a power line communication packet received from a power line communication device against the table, if the comparison indicates that a destination of the power line communication packet is a smart grid wireless device, the processor further looks up a smart grid wireless MAC address of the power line communication device and a smart grid wireless address of the smart grid wireless device in the table, wherein the processor further generates a smart grid wireless packet using the smart grid wireless MAC address of the power line communication device stored in association with the power line communication packet as a source MAC address, and uses the smart grid wireless MAC address of the smart grid wireless device stored in association with the power line communication packet as a destination MAC address; the smart grid wireless component is further configured to send out the generated smart grid wireless packet wirelessly; the memory is further configured to store the smart grid wireless MAC address of the power line communication device and the smart grid wireless MAC address of the smart grid wireless device.