Patent ID: 8270909

Claim:
A method, comprising: transmitting a sounding packet to wireless communication devices to determine characteristics of spatial wireless channels, wherein the spatial wireless channels are respectively associated with the wireless communication devices, wherein the sounding packet is based on a spatial mapping matrix; receiving, in response to the sounding packet, feedback packets from the wireless communication devices, wherein the feedback packets are indicative of feedback matrices, the feedback matrices being derived from wireless channel estimations that are based on received versions of the sounding packet; determining steering matrices based on the spatial mapping matrix and the feedback matrices, wherein the steering matrices are respectively associated with the wireless communication devices; and transmitting, in a space division multiple access (SDMA) frame, a first segment and a second segment, the first segment comprising a single un-steered physical (PHY) frame that provides information to the wireless communication devices, the second segment comprising multiple steered PHY frames that concurrently provide data to the wireless communication devices via different spatial wireless channels, wherein the single un-steered PHY frame is not spatially steered, wherein the multiple steered PHY frames are spatially steered to the wireless communication devices based on the steering matrices, respectively.