Patent ID: 8369301

Claim:
An OFDM communication system comprising: a plurality of radio frequency (RF) channels, wherein the RF channels comprise dissimilar bandwidths; a transmitter for providing a plurality of OFDM subcarriers and a plurality of OFDM frames each comprising variable length cyclic prefix and a plurality of variable size sub-frames; a first processor module, for calculating a fixed subcarrier spacing for the OFDM subcarriers, wherein the fixed subcarrier spacing is chosen such that a number of OFDM subcarriers is variable to utilize any of the RF channels; and a second processor module operable to calculate a plurality of timing gaps, wherein each of the timing gaps is associated with at least one of the variable size sub-frames, wherein the timing gaps are calculated based, at least in part, on a duration of at least one of the variable length cyclic prefixes.