Patent ID: 7423992

Claim:
A time slot and carrier allocation method for time division multiple access (TDMA) multiple carrier communications, comprising: determining from a tone map that first and second time slots are generally allocated to a first and a second receiver respectively; determining from the tone map that the first and second receivers are able to receive using a common set of carriers; determining that a single data stream is to be transmitted to the first and second receivers; transmitting a new tone map to the first and second receivers that specifies that the first and second receivers are to receive the single data stream using the common set of carriers during one or more designated time slots; wherein the number of common carriers is greater than a threshold number of available carriers, and wherein the threshold number comprises approximately 50% of available carriers; and wherein a number of unused carriers allocated to the control stream of data is less than a specified maximum, and the specified maximum comprises approximately 10% of available carriers.