Patent ID: 8331284

Claim:
A method for communicating resource assignment messages, comprising: grouping access terminals into a plurality of groups based upon similarity of attributes associated with the terminals, different groups in said plurality of groups being associated with resource assignment messages of different sizes; and transmitting resource assignment messages to different groups, a resource assignment message transmitted to an individual group being of a size associated with the individual group to which the resource assignment message is transmitted and using at least one of a coding or a modulation based on attributes associated with access terminals comprised within the individual group, said transmitting resource assignment messages including transmitting a bit mask to a group conveying resource assignment information for the group to which the bitmask is transmitted, said bit mask being an assignment message including a single bit for each access terminal in the group to which the message is transmitted, the value of the bit associated with an individual access terminal indicating if any resources have been assigned to the associated individual access terminal.