Patent ID: 8249033

Claim:
A method for communication in overlap areas formed by a plurality of overlapping wireless regional area network (“WRAN”) cells wherein each WRAN cell is operating on a different channel and wherein each WRAN is associated with a base station (“BS”) and a plurality of consumer premise equipments (“CPEs”), the method comprising: transmitting, between at least one CPE and a BS within at least one WRAN cell in the plurality of overlapping WRAN cells, an enhanced coexistence beacon protocol (“ECBP”) packet on the at least one WRAN cell's working channel; sensing working channels used by other WRAN cells of the plurality of overlapping WRAN cells; selecting a common control channel for an overlap area formed by the plurality of overlapping WRAN cells; and transmitting ECBP packets on the common control channel, wherein each ECBP packet includes the following fields: former common control channel ID, current common control channel ID, BS ID of the common control channel owner, current working channel ID, and synchronization type.