Patent ID: 7746827

Claim:
A method for wireless communications, the method comprising: determining by a wireless device the signal to noise ratios (SNRs) of a plurality of stations associated with an access point in a wireless network; selecting by the wireless device between an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission method and a multiple-access joint coding/decoding (MAC) transmission method for communications between a station of the plurality of stations and the access point, the selecting based upon the SNRs of the plurality of stations, the selecting comprising: determining an SNR threshold level, comprising: determining a dependency of total throughput of the plurality of stations on SNR level for the OFDM transmission method and the MAC transmission method; and determining an SNR threshold level for which the total throughput for the OFDM transmission method at the SNR level is approximately equal to the total throughput for the MAC transmission method at the SNR level; selecting the MAC transmission method based upon the SNR of at least one of the plurality of stations being below the determined SNR threshold level; and selecting the OFDM transmission method based upon the SNR of all of the plurality of stations exceeding the selected SNR threshold level; and communicating by the wireless device the selected transmission method to the station of the plurality of stations.