Patent ID: 8738020

Claim:
A method for allocating subcarriers in an orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) system, said method comprising: measuring, at a subscriber station, signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) information of a plurality of clusters, said plurality of clusters being organized into cluster groups, and each cluster of said plurality of clusters including a plurality of said subcarriers; reporting, by said subscriber station, at least one cluster group index of a subset of said cluster groups to a base base station, said at least one cluster group index identifying which of said plurality of clusters correspond to which of said measured SINR information; receiving, from said base station, an allocation of one or more clusters from at least one cluster group of said cluster groups in response to said reporting, and further receiving an indication of a modulation rate to be used for communicating with said base station; and compensating for movement of said subscriber station and for interference variation in said OFDMA system, said compensating comprising: reporting, by said subscriber station, at least one updated cluster group index to said base station; and receiving, at said subscriber station, an updated allocation of one or more updated cluster group index in response to said reporting of said at least one updated cluster group index.