Patent ID: 8750332

Claim:
A method for encoding Medium Access Control (MAC) Protocol Data Units (PDUs) in a MAC layer packet of predefined size comprising a predefined number of bytes in a Physical (PHY) data burst, the method comprising: identifying an unfilled portion of the MAC layer packet not including at least one MAC PDU; filling a first byte of the unfilled portion with a first fixed pattern, wherein the first fixed pattern is one of 0x10, 0x20, 0x30, 0x40, 0x50, 0x60, 0x70, 0x80, 0x90, 0xA0, 0xB0, 0xC0, 0xD0, 0xE0, and 0xF0; and if there is at least one remaining byte other than the first byte in the unfilled portion, filling the at least one remaining byte of the unfilled portion with a second fixed pattern, wherein the second fixed pattern is 0x00, wherein the at least one MAC PDU comprises a MAC PDU header at a start of the at least one MAC PDU, wherein the header comprises a length field at a sixth bit to sixteenth bit, and wherein the first fixed pattern and, if used, the second fixed pattern indicate that the unfilled portion does not include the at least one MAC PDU.