Patent ID: 7729378

Claim:
A method of processing a frame for a wireless communications network, the frame having one of a plurality of frame formats that include a high throughput frame format, the method comprises: receiving, via a baseband receiver module, a frame having a training sequence, a signal field and a data payload wherein the signal field includes data payload processing information; processing the training sequence to detect a signal field length of a plurality of signal field lengths used in the received frame, the training sequence processing includes: comparing at least a portion of the training sequence with at least a portion of an expected training sequence; upon a favorable comparison, determining that the signal field length is a first signal field length used in the received frame; and upon an unfavorable comparison, determining that the signal field length is a second signal field length used in the received frame; processing the signal field based upon the detected signal field length to retrieve the data payload processing information; and processing the data payload based upon the payload processing information.