Patent ID: 8224272

Claim:
A wireless networking receiver, comprising: a demultiplexer configured to: receive a plurality of radio frequency (RF) signals; and send each of the plurality of RF signals to one of a high rate datapath and a low rate datapath; a carrier sense circuit configured to calculate a signal metric for each of the plurality of received RF signals on the high rate datapath and generate, based on the signal metric, a selection signal signifying one of the plurality of received RF signals on the high rate datapath; a first multiplexer configured to: receive the selection signal and the plurality of received RF signals on the high rate datapath; and output the one of the plurality of received RF signals from the high rate datapath based on the selection signal; and a second multiplexer in communication with the high rate datapath and the low rate datapath, the second multiplexer configured to: receive the one of the plurality of received RF signals from the high rate datapath and at least one RF signal from the low rate datapath; and send the one of the plurality of received RF signals from the high rate data path and the at least one RF signal from the low rate datapath to a downstream path.