Patent ID: 8582592

Claim:
A method for assigning resources in a wireless communication system comprising: operating a control node to perform the steps of: transmitting, on a control channel formed from a group of contiguous subcarriers in bandwidth including at least some discontinuous subcarriers, guard subcarrier information, said guard subcarrier information indicating both the number and location of guard subcarriers in a plurality of discontinuous portions of bandwidth corresponding to a first carrier that may be assigned by said control node; selecting a first wireless terminal to be assigned a communications resource; assigning the first wireless terminal a resource including at least two discontinuous portions of bandwidth corresponding to the first carrier for a period of time, said at least two discontinuous portions of bandwidth being discontinuous portions of bandwidth from said plurality of discontinuous portions of bandwidth, said at least two discontinuous portions of bandwidth including a first portion of bandwidth and a second portion of bandwidth, said first and second portions of bandwidth being separated by a third portion of bandwidth corresponding to another carrier not included in said resource, said third portion of bandwidth being larger than either of said two discontinuous portions of bandwidth and being a portion of bandwidth which is not used by said control node; and transmitting a single assignment message communicating the assignment of the resource including the at least two discontinuous portions of bandwidth to the first wireless terminal, said assignment message including a node identifier corresponding to a set of subcarriers including at least one guard subcarrier from each of the at least two discontinuous portions of bandwidth corresponding to the resource.