Enhanced channel access mechanisms for an HPNA network

A Media Controller station (MC STA) for a communications network having a telephone-wire-based communications medium, the communications medium being suitable for allowing use of a plurality of Home Phoneline Network Association (HPNA) v2 frames, the MC STA comprising:

• a QoS (Quality of Service) management entity (QME) receiving at least one end-to-end QoS message characterizing a user application, the at least one end-to-end QoS message including at least one QoS parameter set that is expressed at a layer that is higher than a Media Access Control (MAC) sublayer of an HPNA v2 network and is to be passed down to the MAC sublayer of the MC STA for enabling QoS traffic transport of the application;
• an admission control entity (ACE) performing a centralized admission control decision relating to the application based on the at least one end-to-end QoS message characterizing the application;
• and
• the MC STA transmitting a communications signal in the communications medium having a sequence of blocking frames, each blocking frame having timing to allow an Inter-Frame Gap (IFG) having a duration that is not recognized by an HPNA v2 station (STA) as a duration defined by an HPNA v2 specification for an HPNA IFG, the MC STA further transmitting a message to at least one selected non-MC STA using the communications medium, the transmitted message being transmitted during the blocking frames, and the MC STA receiving a reply message in response to the transmitted message from the non-MC STA during the blocking frames, the non-MC STA adapted to always choose a Backoff signal slot 0 of an HPNA v2 frame during contention resolution with the HPNA v2 STA, the Backoff signal slot 0 is one of only three Backoff Signal Slots comprised by the HPNA v2 frame, each of the three Backoff Signal slots adapted for use only regarding contention resolution after a collision.