Performance of a home LAN using HomePNA 2.0 stations

Non-deterministic MAC (media access control) such as CSMA/CD (carrier sense multiple access/collision detection) is popular due to its simple mechanism and ease of maintenance and extensibility of LAN. CSMA/CD combined with a splitting algorithm for collision resolution was chosen by HomePNA 2.0 where stack levels for collision resolution are finite. Such a non-deterministic nature can be ameliorated to an extent by introducing priorities that differentiate packets as intended in HomePNA 2.0 MAC. This paper presents an analytical capacity model, an experimental model and a comparison in terms of collision resolution period and throughput through simulation. We also present and analyse an improved priority policy.