EMI reduction in PLCA-based networks through beacon temporal spreading

An apparatus, comprising:

• a network interface to communicatively couple the apparatus to one or more other nodes in a network;
• and
• a control circuit to:
• repeatedly issue transmission cycles to the other nodes through the network interface, wherein a given transmission cycle includes a least one send slot for each of the other nodes to send data;
• initiate transmission cycles by issuing beacon signals to the other nodes;
• and
• determine when to issue a beacon signal in a given transmission cycle by:
• determining that all of the other nodes have completed all associated send slots in an immediately previous transmission cycle, thus completing the other nodes' transmission;
• and
• based upon a determination of the completion of the other nodes' transmission, selectively delaying transmission of the beacon signal for the given transmission cycle based upon two or more further immediately previous transmission cycles having lengths that are shorter than a threshold or within a threshold difference of each other.