Patent ID: 8537757

Claim:
A subscriber station for a wireless communication system comprising: a modem section configured to receive downlink data from a base station on a downlink link and to transmit uplink data to the base station on an uplink link shared with other subscribers stations; a receive signal quality module configured to monitor a downlink (DL) quality parameter for the downlink data providing a parameter value; and a control section configured to: determine a preferred downlink physical (PHY) mode for the downlink data among a plurality of PHY modes of different degrees of robustness, the preferred downlink PHY mode being defined between a first and a second threshold for the parameter value; instruct the modem section to transmit to the base station an indication of the preferred downlink PHY mode; identify in a DL sub-frame map received from the base station, a current downlink PHY mode selected for the subscriber station based on the preferred downlink PHY mode and the bandwidth available to the subscriber station on the downlink link; and instruct the modem section to receive the downlink data based on the current downlink PHY mode, wherein the downlink PHY mode specifies a modulation format and a forward error correction technique used for transmission of downlink data.