Patent ID: 8213949

Claim:
A method of transferring first overhead information in a wireless communication system, wherein the first overhead information is encoded with a first modulation scheme, and wherein the first overhead information is wirelessly transferred to a plurality of wireless communication devices in communication with the wireless communication system, the method comprising: receiving signal quality information from each of the plurality of wireless communication devices; processing the signal quality information to determine a second modulation scheme for the first overhead information, wherein the second modulation scheme is determined to allow the first overhead information to be decoded by each of the plurality of wireless communication devices, and the second modulation scheme is of a higher order of modulation than the first modulation scheme; transferring an indicator of the second modulation scheme to the plurality of wireless communication devices; transferring the first overhead information to the plurality of wireless communication devices encoded with the second modulation scheme; and transferring only a portion of the overhead information in the first modulation scheme to accommodate the initialization of a new wireless communication device.