Patent ID: 8068547

Claim:
A method of communicating data comprising: providing a constellation, the constellation assigning a set of bit sequences to a set of constellation points; transferring data in a first transmission mode, the transferring data in the first transmission mode comprising: providing transmission symbols by mapping data bits to constellation points of the set of constellation points in accordance with the constellation, modulating a transmission signal based on the transmission symbols; transferring data in a second transmission mode, the transferring data in the second transmission mode comprising: providing the transmission symbols by mapping data bits only to a subset of the set of constellation points in accordance with the constellation, and modulating a transmission signal based on the transmission symbols; switching from the first to the second transmission mode; and detecting at a receiver the switching from the first to the second transmission mode, the detecting at the receiver side comprising a determining whether received symbols represent constellation points in the subset of the set of constellation points.