Patent ID: 6856652

Claim:
A method of accommodating pre-defined channels of differing bandwidths without substantial retrofitting of communication system components, each pre-defined channel having a center frequency, comprising: when broad pre-defined channels are available, transmitting N independent communication signals to N mobile units over a single broad pre-defined channel, each independent communication signal being broadcast at a pre-defined offset from the center frequency of the broad pre-defined channel; when only narrow pre-defined channels are available, each narrow pre-defined channel having 1/M bandwidth of the broad pre-defined channel, transmitting N/M independent signals to N/M mobile units over each of M narrow pre-defined channels, each of the N/M independent signals being broadcast at a pre-defined offset from the center frequency of the narrow pre-defined channels; wherein the pre-defined offsets from the center frequency of the narrow pre-defined channels is a sub-set of the pre-defined offsets from the center frequency of the broad pre-defined channel.