Patent ID: 7933346

Claim:
A method for communicating in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) network comprising: configuring partitions of subchannels of a plurality of partitions for use in sectors of a base station such that each sector has one partition of subchannels configured in accordance with a contiguous subcarrier permutation scheme and each sector has remaining partitions of subchannels configured in accordance with a distributed subcarrier permutation scheme, wherein the one partition of subchannels of each sector that is configured in accordance with the contiguous subcarrier permutation scheme comprises a different partition of subchannels for each of the sectors; and concurrently transmitting on the subchannels configured in accordance with the distributed subcarrier permutation scheme and the subchannels configured in accordance with the contiguous subcarrier permutation scheme, wherein subcarriers of subchannels configured in accordance with the contiguous subcarrier permutation scheme experience randomized interference with subcarriers of subchannels configured in accordance with the distributed subcarrier permutation scheme in different sectors, wherein the partitions of subchannels configured in accordance with the distributed subcarrier permutation scheme utilize interfering subcarriers in different sectors, and wherein the partitions of subchannels configured in accordance with the distributed subcarrier permutation scheme are operable in either PUSC or FUSC modes.