Patent ID: 8526380

Claim:
A method of operating a communication system, the method comprising: in a wireless access node having a plurality of ports, exchanging wireless communications over the ports with a plurality of wireless communication devices that are individually identified by device identifiers; in a control system, individually allocating the wireless communication devices into a plurality of categories based on the device identifiers and determining one of the categories having a majority of the wireless communication devices; in the control system, configuring the ports of the wireless access node to utilize a multiple-input and multiple-output two transmit and two receive mode for exchanging the wireless communications if the one category having the majority of the wireless communication devices comprises a first data rate capability; in the control system, configuring the ports of the wireless access node to utilize a multiple-input and multiple-output four transmit and four receive mode for exchanging the wireless communications if the one category having the majority of the wireless communication devices comprises a second data rate capability; and in the wireless access node, exchanging additional wireless communications over the ports with the wireless communication devices using the port configuration.