Fair Resource Allocation in Multiuser Indoor Power Line Communications

Multicarrier modulation is one of the most promising technologies for achieving high performance communications in the indoor power line network. Due to the fading and time-varying characteristics of the power line channel, the various users experience different channel conditions, thus the application of efficient multiuser transmission schemes will enhance multiuser diversity. This paper addresses the problem of fairness in bandwidth and power allocation for the indoor power line channel with multiple multicarrier links and presents a multiuser discrete loading algorithm that consists of two phases. First, a set of minimum data rates is provided to all users, and then, the available resources are allocated with fairness according to the quality of each link. We examine the proposed algorithm using an illustrative example of an indoor power line network and we demonstrate its performance. Comparative numerical results of various allocation strategies are also presented