Patent ID: 8503328

Claim:
A method for transmitting a configuration message to a plurality of terminals in a wireless network, the method comprising: assigning a slot in a transmission to contain the configuration message, wherein the configuration message comprises system parameters configured to initialize the terminals to operate on the wireless network; generating a marker that identifies a location of the slot containing the configuration message in the transmission; transmitting the marker to identify the slot containing the configuration message in the transmission to the plurality of terminals; transmitting the configuration message in the slot of the transmission using a high data rate so that air link resources are conserved; repeating the transmitting of the marker and the transmitting of the configuration message; and periodically updating the configuration message, wherein transmitting the marker comprises transmitting a pilot signal and a phase adjustment to the pilot signal, and the phase adjustment inverts the pilot signal so that when the terminals receive the inverted pilot signal the terminals know that the associated time slot contains the configuration message.