Patent ID: 8626227

Claim:
A method for increasing signal-to-interference and noise ratio, comprising: determining a channel quality for each of a plurality of subcarriers, wherein the channel quality for each individual subcarrier a function of the signal-to-interference to noise ratio for the individual subcarrier and the power allocated to the subcarrier; allocating power to a subset of the plurality of subcarriers, wherein each individual subcarrier of the subset has a channel quality greater then each individual subcarrier not of the subset, wherein allocating power to the subset of the plurality of subcarriers comprises: sorting the plurality of subcarriers in descending order of their respective channel qualities to generate a sorted set of subcarriers; determining a subcarrier K in the sorted set such that the following condition is true: 1 d K < P T ∑ i = 1 K ⁢ 1 d i + 1 where d k is the channel quality of the subcarrier K, P T is the total power allocated to all subcarriers, and d i is the channel quality of a subcarrier i of the sorted set; and allocating power to subcarrier K and subcarriers having a channel quality greater than subcarrier K; and transmitting a signal on each of the individual subcarriers of the subset.