Patent ID: 8290088

Claim:
In a communications device within a wireless communications network, the communications device having a transmitter capable of operating in one of a plurality of transmit antenna diversity scheme modes, a method for generating and transmitting transmit antenna port information enabling a remote communications device to determine a number of transmit antenna ports active in the transmitter, the method comprising: generating data for transmission to a remote communication device comprising generating transport data and computing CRC parity data based on the transport data; scrambling a plurality of data bits of the generated data according to one of a plurality of predetermined scrambling sequences, each of the plurality of scrambling sequences corresponding to a defined number of transmit antenna ports operating within the transmitter, wherein scrambling the plurality of data bits comprises scrambling the computed CRC parity data in accordance with a first scrambling sequence when the transmitter operates with only one transmit antenna port and a second scrambling sequence when the transmitter operates with only two transmit antenna ports; and transmitting the scrambled plurality of data bits within a data frame to the remote communication device.