QoS augmented CSMA/CA MAC protocol for high speed multimedia powerline communications

In this paper we propose a modified Medium Access Control (MAC) mechanism for PLC multimedia traffic, which is based on a combination of features from the Homeplug and the IEEE 802.11e standard that supports video with QoS. PLC access priority and Contention Window (CW) parameters are used in conjunction with IEEE 802.11e QoS parameters to provide improved access control for video traffic as well as higher priority traffic at various nodes in a PLC network. Simulation results of the proposed mechanism show higher video throughput. Moreover, voice and data delay is not influenced even if video delay decreased. The frame drop rate of data traffic due to limited buffer size is also reduced.