Patent ID: 7580347

Claim:
A method for a remote unit of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing multipoint-to-point communications system, the method comprising: transmitting up to a plurality of tones from a first remote unit, the up to a plurality of tones modulated with upstream information using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing and configured to combine with tones from at least one other remote unit to form an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing waveform of spectrally overlapping orthogonal carriers; transmitting a first signal from the first remote unit, the first signal providing for a first adjustment of a manner in which transmissions are transmitted from the first remote unit on at least one of the up to a plurality of tones, the first adjustment varying the alignment of the transmissions as received at the host unit; and transmitting a second signal from the first remote unit, the second signal providing for a second adjustment of the manner in which transmissions are transmitted from the first remote unit on the at least one of the up to a plurality of tones, the second adjustment varying the alignment of the transmissions as received at the host unit, wherein the second signal is different than the first signal.