Patent ID: 7573851

Claim:
method for assigning channels to support communication between subscribers and a base station in a broadband wireless network, comprising: for each of multiple antenna resources configured for communication on multiple channels, at the base station, obtaining one or more channel characteristics for each channel hosted by each antenna resource, the channel characteristics indicative of reception quality for a corresponding channel; and assigning, by said base station, one or more channels to subscribers based on the one or more channel characteristics that are obtained; wherein said obtaining one or more channel characteristics is accomplished, at least in part, by ranging operations performed by said subscribers; wherein the channel characteristics are measured by performing operations comprising: performing ranging operations between a subscriber and a base station over one of an uplink or bi-directional link, the ranging operations including transmissions sent from the subscriber station and received by each antenna resource, the transmissions carried over multiple channels; and obtaining, at each antenna resource, channel characteristics indicative of signal quality of each of the multiple channels.