text: Power-line communications (PLC) are becoming a key component in home networking, because they provide easy and high-throughput connectivity. The dominant MAC protocol for high data-rate PLC, the IEEE 1901, employs a CSMA CA mechanism similar to the backoff process of 802.11. Existing performance evaluation studies of this protocol assume that the backoff processes of the stations are independent (the so-called decoupling assumption). However, in contrast to 802.11, 1901 stations can change their state after sensing the medium busy, which is regulated by the so-called deferral counter. This mechanism introduces strong coupling between the stations and, as a result, makes existing analyses inaccurate. In this paper, we propose a performance model for 1901, which does not rely on the decoupling assumption. We prove that our model admits a unique solution for a wide range of configurations and confirm the accuracy of the model using simulations. Our results show that we outperform current models based on the decoupling assumption. In addition to evaluating the performance in steady state, we further study the transient dynamics of 1901, which is also affected by the deferral counter.
  @cite_18: The IEEE has standardized the 802.11 protocol for wireless local area networks. The primary medium access control (MAC) technique of 802.11 is called the distributed coordination function (DCF). The DCF is a carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA CA) scheme with binary slotted exponential backoff. This paper provides a simple, but nevertheless extremely accurate, analytical model to compute the 802.11 DCF throughput, in the assumption of finite number of terminals and ideal channel conditions. The proposed analysis applies to both the packet transmission schemes employed by DCF, namely, the basic access and the RTS CTS access mechanisms. In addition, it also applies to a combination of the two schemes, in which packets longer than a given threshold are transmitted according to the RTS CTS mechanism. By means of the proposed model, we provide an extensive throughput performance evaluation of both access mechanisms of the 802.11 protocol.
  @cite_16: As demands for data communications among home personal devices in home environments increase, various types of home-networking technologies have appeared. Among them, power line communication is one of the most promising wired home-networking technologies, because the existing power line facilities can be utilized for data transmission without deploying any new physical links. HomePlug 1.0 is the most popular power line communication technology, which has been standardized by the HomePlug power line alliance, and attempts to mitigate the effect of time- and frequency-varying channels by enhanced modulation and channel coding. Although HomePlug 1.0 has undergone field trials and simulations, its analytic model and performance was only conducted for throughput under saturation conditions. We propose a new analytic model to evaluate MAC throughput and delay of HomePlug 1.0 both under saturation and under normal traffic conditions. We verify our proposed model via simulations and evaluate the performance of HomePlug 1.0.
summary: There are a few works analyzing the backoff mechanism of 1901 that rely on the decoupling assumption. First, @cite_16 introduce a model using a discrete-time Markov chain similar to Bianchi's model for 802.11 @cite_18 . The additional state required to capture the effect of the deferral counter @math significantly increases the complexity of the Markov chain.