Patent ID: 7817614

Claim:
A method of setting virtual carrier sensing data in wireless network communications, the method comprising: receiving, by a station, a frame transmitted using a plurality of modulation schemes, wherein the frame includes at least a first segment modulated by a basic modulation scheme and a second segment which follows the first segment, and the first segment includes data for virtual carrier sensing, information indicating a length of the second segment and information indicating a data rate of the second segment; extracting the data for virtual carrier sensing from the first segment of the frame; and setting the extracted data as a parameter of a physical layer virtual carrier sensing indicator vector; and setting virtual carrier sensing using the extracted data set as the parameter of the physical layer virtual carrier sensing indicator vector, wherein the basic modulation scheme has a data rate which is supported by any station, and wherein the setting the virtual carrier sensing comprises transmitting the physical layer virtual carrier sensing indicator vector to a medium access control (MAC) layer.