Patent ID: 8576872

Claim:
A method of multi-carrier wireless transmission, the method being implementable in an apparatus and comprising: contending for each one of a plurality of subcarriers independently by transmitting a separate request-to-send (RTS) signal on each one of the plurality of subcarriers; wherein the RTS signal transmitted on one of the one or more of the plurality of subcarriers is transmitted over a narrower frequency bandwidth than the data transmitted on the one of the one or more of the plurality subcarriers; receiving one or more clear-to-send (CTS) signals on one or more of the plurality of subcarriers in response to the RTS signals, wherein the one or more CTS signals indicate to another apparatus receiving the one or more CTS signals that the apparatus has won contention for the one or more of the plurality of subcarriers, and transmitting data via the one or more of the plurality of subcarriers.