On Efficiency and Validity of Previous Homeplug MAC Performance Analysis

The Medium Access Control protocol of Power Line Communication networks (defined in Homeplug and IEEE 1901 standards) has received relatively modest attention from the research community. As a consequence, there is only one analytic model that complies with the standardised MAC procedures and considers unsaturated conditions. We identify two important limitations of the existing analytic model: high computational expense and predicted results just prior to the predicted saturation point do not correspond to long-term network performance. In this work, we present a simplification of the previously defined analytic model of Homeplug MAC able to substantially reduce its complexity and demonstrate that the previous performance results just before predicted saturation correspond to a transitory phase. We determine that the causes of previous misprediction are common analytical assumptions and the potential occurrence of a transitory phase, that we show to be of extremely long duration under certain circumstances. We also provide techniques, both analytical and experimental, to correctly predict long-term behaviour and analyse the effect of specific Homeplug/IEEE 1901 features on the magnitude of misprediction errors

Aspectos básicos de seguridad y QoS en redes de datos sobre Power Line Communications

Actualmente la seguridad informática es una necesidad, ante la expansión de las redes, para garantizar la disponibilidad, la confidencialidad y la integridad de la información en usuarios públicos y privados. El uso de la red eléctrica como medio físico de transmisión, ha sido considerado como una excelente alternativa en la prestación de servicios de interconexión de última milla. El uso de adaptadores de red basados en Power Line Communications (PLC) facilitan el diseño de redes LAN y comunicaciones de banda ancha a través de la red eléctrica, convirtiendo cualquier tomacorriente en un punto de conexión para el usuario, sin la necesidad de cableados adicionales a los existentes, en donde la seguridad en la red y la calidad de servicio (QoS / Quality of Service) se convierten en aspectos de vital importancia a la hora de implementarlas. En este artículo se reflexiona sobre la seguridad en la red y la calidad del servicio (QoS), elementos que juegan un papel importante en la administración y la eficiencia de una red centrada en aplicaciones, utilizando la red eléctrica como medio físico de transmisión desde el análisis simple del estándar HomePlug 1.0

Improving the Data Transmission Throughput over the Home Electrical Wiring

Abstract — Powerline communications (PLC) are receiving special attention since they use an already available and ubiquitous infrastructure. The main standard for PLC home networks is HomePlug. This work improves the throughput of HomePlug by modifying the medium access control sub-layer. The key idea is to define a fast collision avoidance mechanism where every station that wants to access the medium increments its contention window after sensing another ongoing transmission. The proposal reduces the number of collisions in the network improving the achievable throughput. We compared our mechanism to the original HomePlug standard through simulation and mathematical analysis. We verified that the improvement is independent from the packet size, the transmission rate and the number of nodes when the network is high loaded. Index Terms — HomePlug, home networks, collision avoidance, medium access control. I

Modelling and analysis of next generation home networks

As Home Networking grows over the next 20 years the need for accurate models for both the network and the hardware becomes apparent. In this work, these two areas are considered together to develop a combined hardware and network model for a HomePlug power line based network. This change of focus is important when the type of devices that will be running on tomorrow's home network is considered. It will have evolved from a simple network of PCs sharing an Internet connection to a large heterogeneous structure of embedded System-on-Chip devices communicating on a variety of linked network technologies.This work presents a novel combined hardware and network modelling tool that address the following areas: 1. Development of a system level model of a HomePlug power-line based network, including the fundamental network protocols, the SoC hardware and the physical channel. 2. Use the developed model to explore various system scenarios. 3. Development of alternative hardware algorithms within the design. The model developed uses a Discrete Event simulation method to allow designers to explore areas such as: 1. How does the networking hardware (i.e. the components on the SoC) interact, and what are the issues of changing the algorithms. 2. I low do the nodes on the network interact, as the traffic patterns are different to those found on traditional (office-based) networks, as there will be a greater amount of streaming media