Patent ID: 7460494
Filing Date: 2008-12-02
Classification: H04L,H04W

Abstract:
1. A method, comprising: operating in a multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) mode by a transmitter device of a wireless network to communicate with a receiver device of the wireless network, the wireless network including at least one transmitter device and a plurality of receiver devices; observing both physical (PHY) layer performance of the receiver device and media access control (MAC) layer performance of the transmitter device during said MIMO mode of operation; and the transmitter device based at least on the observations switching from operating in the MIMO mode to operating in a spatial division, multiple access (SDMA) mode to communicate with the plurality of receiver devices including the receiver device, when poor MAC layer performance below a MAC layer performance threshold is observed for the transmitter device during the MIMO mode of operation of the transmitter device, even though good PHY layer performance above a PHY layer performance threshold is observed for the receiver device during the MIMO mode of operation of the transmitter device.