Patent ID: 8179834

Claim:
For use in a wireless network comprising a plurality of base stations capable of communicating with a plurality of mobile stations in a coverage area of said wireless network, a transmitting apparatus associated with a first of said plurality of base stations comprising: a beamforming traffic path for use in beamforming transmission to one of the mobile stations; a diversity traffic path for use in diversity transmission to said one mobile station; and a selector coupled to said beamforming traffic path and said diversity traffic path configured to dynamically select which of said traffic paths is used for transmission to said one mobile station based on a number and size of RAKE fingers determined by a RAKE receiver and whether the number of RAKE fingers is above a first number of significant RAKE fingers or below a second number of significant RAKE fingers, and dynamically selecting said diversity traffic path without said beamforming traffic path if the size and the first number of significant RAKE fingers comprises a rich scattering environment.