Patent ID: 8331476

Claim:
A method for selecting at a user terminal reception and decoding of a transmission mode used by a base station, the user terminal receiving communicated information from the base station, which has a number of antennas, via plural channels, the plural channels including a primary broadcast channel and at least one control channel, the method comprising: receiving at the user terminal initiating data from the base station via the primary broadcast channel; detecting from the received initiating data whether a first or second transmission mode is used by the base station for the primary broadcast channel, the first transmission mode indicating that a first number of the number of antennas is used by the base station and the second transmission mode indicating that a second number, different than the first number, of the number of antennas is used by the base station to communicate with the user terminal; and using the detected first or second transmission mode of the primary broadcast channel to decode data of the at least one control channel.