Patent ID: 8144720

Claim:
A method in an OFDMA system to determine a modulation and coding scheme to use for a packet of a certain size to be transmitted by a mobile station that is power limited whereby its maximum transient power is lower than that required to meet a power control criteria, comprising the steps of: determining by a processing unit, a number of time-frequency resources required to transmit the packet for a modulation and coding scheme; determining by the processing unit, a signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) based on the number of time-frequency resources used and available power at the mobile station which is power limited; determining by the processing unit, a size of the packet; determining by the processing unit, a transmission rate as a ratio of the packet size transmitted to the number of time-frequency resources used; setting with the processing unit, a rate to zero if the determined SINR is lower than a threshold SINR required for the modulation and coding scheme; selecting with the processing unit, the modulation and coding scheme as a function of effects of a number of used sub-carriers on SINR, the size of a packet, and which has a highest transmission rate; and fragmenting the packet by the processing unit into separated frames for transmission only when there are more packets in a queue than can be transmitted in a current frame.