This Recommendation specifies reference models and functionality for all components of the data link layer (DLL) of home network transceivers designed for the transmission of data over premises wiring including inside telephone wiring, coaxial cable, and power-line wiring, and combinations of these.

This includes support of:

– contention-free TDMA and contention-based CSMA medium access control;

– parameter-based and priority-based QoS;

– security and confidentiality for the home network, including authentication, encryption and key management procedures;

– hidden nodes and data relaying;

– internal and external management communications;

– unicast and multicast retransmission based on selective acknowledgement and frame-based acknowledgement protocols;

– power-saving mechanisms;

– bidirectional transmission;

– neighbouring domain interference mitigation (NDIM);

– network management procedures, such as:

• network initialization procedures,

• admission control,

• node authentication and encryption key assignment,

• connection management,

• channel estimation,

• bandwidth reservation and flow control,

• topology maintenance and routing mechanisms, and

• recovery procedures after domain master failure.

– Layer 2 configuration and management protocol (LCMP).