Patent ID: 8139550

Claim:
For use in a wireless network, a base station that communicates with a plurality of subscriber stations according to a multicarrier protocol, wherein the base station is configured to receive an uplink subframe comprising a plurality of blocks, each of the blocks comprising up to N subcarriers transmitted by the plurality of subscriber stations, and receive, from the plurality of subscriber stations, acknowledgement (ACK) signals carried on subcarriers that are substantially at edges of a bandwidth of the N subcarriers such that in a first block of the subframe, a first ACK signal is carried on a first subcarrier that is substantially at a first edge of the bandwidth while a second ACK signal is carried on a subcarrier that is substantially on a second edge of the bandwidth, and such that in a second block of the subframe, the first ACK signal is carried on the second subcarrier while the second ACK signal is carried on the first subcarrier.