Patent ID: 8885535

Claim:
A method for operating a wireless communication device, the method comprising: transmitting a management frame map to a plurality of other wireless communication devices, the management frame map including operational parameters for a first and a second of the plurality of the other wireless communication devices, the operational parameters associated with a map index, wherein at least one of first operational parameters for the first wireless communication device of the other wireless communication devices are different than at least one of second operational parameters for the second wireless communication device of the other wireless communication devices; transmitting a multi-user packet to the plurality of other wireless communication devices of at least one of a plurality of clusters, the at least one cluster based on a tone mapping among one or more channels of one or more frequency bands, wherein the multi-user packet including the map index indicating, based on the management frame map, the at least one of the first operational parameters determined to be relevant to the first of the plurality of other wireless communication devices, and when relevant, the first of the plurality of other wireless communication devices employs the at least one of the first operational parameters to process at least one field of a subsequent multi-user packet based on the map index within the multi-user packet; and the map index further indicating: the at least one of the second operational parameters determined to be relevant to the second of the plurality of other wireless communication devices, and when relevant, the second of the plurality of other wireless communication devices employs the at least one of the second operational parameters to process at least another field based on the map index within the multi-user packet.