A Comparative Study of Power Line Communication Networks With and Without Buffer

Power line communication (PLC) has recently been receiving widespread attention due to its applications in the smart grid. We present a comparative study on the call-level performance of PLC networks with and without buffer through queueing theory. The PLC network model consists of a base station (BS) and a number of subscriber stations that are interconnected with each other and with the BS via power lines. The power line transmission channels are subject to failure during service due to disturbance. A two-dimensional Markov process is used for the modeling. Performance comparison is presented through theoretic analysis and numerical results