Abstract: One aspect of the invention provides a novel scheme to synchronize signal reception for a receiver device. In one embodiment, multi-symbol correlation of a first signal and a reference signal is performed. The reference signal corresponds to symbols denoting a synchronization or alignment marker. For every first signal sample, an indication of the degree of similarity between a plurality of the first signal symbols and reference signal symbols is generate as a second signal. This second signal is then nonlinearly processed, linearly processed, and then nonlinearly processed over time to determine if indications of high degrees of correlation occur at periodic intervals. If so, then these are considered synchronization markers and are used to synchronize signal reception of the receiver device.

Abstract: A system and method of controlling the spectrum of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal. The method comprises receiving an input frame of data samples to be modulated onto orthogonal multi-carrier signals, performing frequency domain filtering and spectrum masking on the input frame of data samples, and modulating the respective frequency modified data samples onto a plurality of carriers. Such a system may include an over sampling logic to over sample the input data to increase the frequency resolution of the output spectrum, a wave shaping filter to perform frequency domain filtering of the input data, a spectrum mask to further modify the spectrum of the output signal, and an inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) to generate the modulated orthogonal multi-carrier signal. Another embodiment entails controlling the spectrum of the output OFDM signal by performing time-domain filtering.

Abstract: One embodiment of the invention relates to a media adapter adapted for coupling a networking device to a power line. This embodiment of the media adapter comprises a physical layer coupled to the power line, a medium access control (MAC) layer in communication with the physical layer, and an inter-working unit in communication with the MAC layer. The inter-working unit is adapted to translate information from a first format into a second format, which differs from the first format, to enable information to be received and transmitted over the power line.