IEEE Standard for a Convergent 
Digital Home Network for  
Heterogeneous Technologies 
 
Amendment 1: Support of New  
MAC/PHYs and Enhancements 
IEEE Communications Society 
 
Sponsored by the 
Power Line Communications Committee 
IEEE 
3 Park Avenue  
New York, NY 10016-5997 
USA 
 
 
IEEE Std 1905.1a™-2014 
(Amendment to 
IEEE Std 1905.1™-2013) 
 
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IEEE Std 1905.1a™-2014 
(Amendment to 
IEEE Std 1905.1™-2013) 
IEEE Standard for a Convergent 
Digital Home Network for 
Heterogeneous Technologies 
Amendment 1: Support of New 
MAC/PHYs and Enhancements 
Sponsor 
Power Line Communications Committee 
of the 
IEEE Communications Society 
Approved 23 December 2014 
IEEE-SA Standards Board 
 
 
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Abstract:  An  abstraction  layer  for  multiple  home  networking  technologies  that  provides  a 
common interface to widely deployed home networking technologies is defined in this standard: 
IEEE 1901™ over power lines, IEEE 802.11™ for wireless, Ethernet over twisted pair cable, and 
MoCA 1.1 over coax. Additional network technologies are supported by an extensible mechanism 
using an IEEE OUI and an XML-formatted document. Connectivity selection for transmission of 
packets  arriving  from  any  interface  or  application  is  supported  by  the  1905  abstraction  layer. 
Modification  to  the  underlying  home  networking  technologies  is  not  required  by  the  1905 
abstraction layer, and hence it does not change the behavior or implementation of existing home 
networking technologies. The 1905 abstraction layer is between layers 2 and 3 and abstracts the 
individual  details  of  each  interface,  aggregates  available  bandwidth,  and  facilitates  seamless 
integration. The 1905 abstraction layer also facilitates end-to-end quality of service (QoS) while 
simplifying  the  introduction  of  new  devices  to  the  network,  establishing  secure  connections, 
extending network coverage, and facilitating advanced network management features including 
discovery, path selection, autoconfiguration, and QoS negotiation. 
 
Keywords:  abstraction  layer,  access  point  (AP)  autoconfiguration,  data  models,  extensibility, 
fragmentation and reassembly, Generic Phy, IEEE 802.1™ bridge discovery, IEEE Std 802.11™, 
IEEE  Std  1901™,  IEEE  Std  1905.1™,  L2,  MoCA®,  pairwise  master  key,  power  management, 
push button, registration, security, topology discovery protocol, Wi-Fi®, XML 
 
• 
                                                 
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.  
3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5997, USA  
 
Copyright © 2015 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.  
All rights reserved. Published 20 February 2015. Printed in the United States of America. 
 
IEEE is a registered trademark in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, owned by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics  
Engineers, Incorporated.  
 
MoCA is a registered trademark in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, owned by the Multimedia over Coax Alliance. 
 
Wi-Fi and WPA are registered trademarks in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance. 
 
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ISBN 978-0-7381-9496-7 
ISBN 978-0-7381-9497-4 
STD20086 
STDPD20086 
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Participants 
At the time this amendment was submitted to the IEEE-SA Standards Board for approval, the Convergent 
Digital Home Network Working Group had the following membership: 
Purva Rajkotia, Chair 
C. Scott Willy, Vice Chair 
Stephen Palm, Editor 
 
The following entities submitted technical contributions or commented on this amendment at various stages 
of project development. 
AT&T 
Broadcom Corporation 
Entropic Communications 
HD-PLC Alliance 
HomeGrid Forum 
HomePlug Powerline Alliance 
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd 
Institute for Information Industry 
Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. 
 
 
The following individuals submitted technical contributions or commented on this amendment at various 
stages of project development. 
Mstar Semiconductor, Inc 
Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) 
Orange 
Panasonic Corporation of North America 
Qingdao Eastsoft Communication Technology Co. Ltd. 
Qualcomm Incorporated 
Sigma Designs 
STMicroelectronics 
ZTE Corporation 
Jim Allen 
Avner Aloush  
Mitch Aramaki 
David Barr 
Erez Ben-Tovim 
Edith Berard 
Les Brown 
Matt Chen 
Wu Chen 
Philippe Christin 
Chen Dong 
John Egan 
 
 
The following members of the entity balloting committee voted on this amendment. Balloters may have 
voted for approval, disapproval, or abstention. 
Jean-Philippe Faure 
Rob Gelphman 
Stephan Horvath 
Xiaoye Hu 
Jean-Philippe Javaudin 
Tong Jiang 
Philippe Klein 
Avi Kliger 
Nobutaka Kodama 
Abdesselem Kortebi 
Fangfang Liu 
Marcos Martinez 
Pascal Moniot 
Stephen Palm 
Purva Rajkotia 
Rob Ranck 
Martin Renard 
Hai Shalom 
Barbara Stark 
Viviane Su 
Mark Walters 
Lin Wang 
C. Scott Willy  
Boshan Zhang 
AT&T 
Bright House Networks 
Broadcom Corporation 
D-Link Corporation 
HD-PLC Alliance 
HomeGrid Forum 
HomePlug Powerline Alliance 
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd 
Institute for Information Industry 
Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. 
Mstar Semiconductor, Inc 
Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) 
 
 
Nokia 
Orange 
Panasonic Corporation of North America 
Qingdao Eastsoft Communication Technology Co. Ltd. 
Qualcomm Incorporated 
Sensus 
Siemens Corporation 
Sigma Designs 
Sony Corporation 
STMicroelectronics 
ZTE Corporation 
Copyright © 2015 IEEE. All rights reserved. 
vi 
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