Patent ID: 8019303

Claim:
A method performed by a multicarrier receiver comprising: determining a current channel utilization of a communication channel; changing a receiver capability based on the current channel utilization; selecting a receive data rate based on the receiver capability; and notifying a transmitting station when the receiver capability has been changed to allow the transmitting station to change either its spatial channel transmission configuration or its transmission bandwidth wherein changing the receiver capability includes one or more of reducing a number of antennas used to receive multicarrier communication signals and reducing a channel bandwidth when the current channel utilization is below a lower channel utilization threshold, wherein reducing the number of antennas comprises turning off signal-path circuitry associated with one or more of the antennas, wherein reducing the channel bandwidth comprises changing a receive channel bandwidth to a narrowband channel from a wideband channel, the wideband channel having at least twice the frequency bandwidth of the narrowband channel and comprises two or more narrowband channels, wherein notifying includes notifying the transmitting station that either the number of antennas used by the receiver has been changed or that the receive-channel bandwidth used by the receiver has been changed, wherein changing the receiver capability includes one or more of increasing the number of antennas used to receive the multicarrier communication signals and increasing the channel bandwidth when the current channel utilization exceeds an upper channel utilization threshold, wherein increasing the channel bandwidth comprises changing the receive channel bandwidth to the wideband channel from the narrowband channel, wherein increasing the number of antennas comprises turning on signal-path circuitry associated with one or more of the antennas, wherein turning off the signal-path circuitry associated with one or more of the antennas reduces power consumption of the multicarrier receiver, wherein the two or more narrowband channels that comprise the wideband channel utilize different sets of OFDM subcarriers, wherein the multicarrier receiver is configured to operate in accordance with an IEEE 802.11(n) wireless communication standard, wherein the narrowband channel has a bandwidth of 20 MHz, and wherein the wideband channel has a bandwidth of at least 40 MHz.