Patent ID: 8837271

Claim:
A method, comprising: allocating a downlink resource block to a plurality of wireless communication devices (WCDs), wherein the downlink resource block comprises a plurality of sub-carriers and corresponds to a specified time period, wherein the specified time period has a duration that accommodates transmission of multiple symbols; selecting a plurality of orthogonal codes for the downlink resource block; assigning each WCD in the plurality of WCDs a respective set of one or more orthogonal codes from the selected plurality of orthogonal codes; receiving a data stream that comprises respective data for each of the WCDs; generating an encoded data stream from the data stream, wherein generating the encoded data stream from the data stream comprises encoding each WCD's respective data in the data stream using a respective orthogonal code assigned to that WCD; generating output symbols from the encoded data stream; and transmitting, by a transmitter, the output symbols in the downlink resource block.