Patent ID: 8441975

Claim:
A method for operating a wireless communication device, the method comprising: generating a multi-user super-frame (MU-SF) announcement frame, wherein: the MU-SF announcement frame indicating a plurality of MU-SFs during which a plurality of wireless communication devices perform medium access; and each of the plurality of MU-SFs including a respective first period during which a first of the plurality of wireless communication devices accesses the medium in accordance with a first operational mode, corresponding to a carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) operational mode applied to at least one of a first plurality of clusters, and a respective second period during which a second of the plurality of wireless communication devices accesses the medium in accordance with a second operational mode using at least one of a second plurality of clusters, such that each of the first plurality of clusters and the second plurality of clusters being a respective mapping of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) tones within a corresponding at least one channel among a corresponding at least one frequency band; operating a plurality of antennae for transmitting the MU-SF announcement frame to the plurality of wireless communication devices; and based on the MU-SF announcement frame, supporting communication with the plurality of wireless communication devices or a subset of the plurality of wireless communication devices in accordance with each respective first period and each respective second period of the plurality of MU-SFs.