The HomePlug 1.0 standard provides for high-speed communications on a wired medium (e.g., powerlines and coaxial cables) using orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) signals and carrier-sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA). HomePlug Audio/Video (HPAV) is a next generation of this powerline networking technology that provides for broadband high-quality multi-stream entertainment-oriented networking over a wired medium. HPAV networks use a central coordinator (CCo) to coordinate activities within an HPAV network including allocating time for CSMA and time-division multiple access (TDMA) transmissions.
The ITU-T G.9960 standard, commonly referred to as G.hn, also provides for broadband communications over a wired medium using OFDM signals. One issue is that HomePlug nodes and G.hn network nodes operating on the same wired medium may interfere with each other. To prevent G.hn network nodes and HomePlug nodes from interfering with each other, a frequency division multiplexing technique has been conventionally used to restrict signals from G.hn network nodes from the frequency band utilized by the HomePlug nodes. The HomePlug nodes however are configured to utilize a 2-28 MHZ frequency band, which is considered a lower-attenuation and lower noise region of the spectrum that is available on a powerline channel. As a result, G.hn network nodes are sometimes limited to using higher-attenuation and higher-noise regions of the available spectrum resulting in reduced performance for a G.hn network.
Thus, there are general needs for a methods and devices that provide a coexistence mechanism for HomePlug networks and G.hn networks to allow G.hn network nodes and HomePlug nodes to operate within the same frequency spectrum.