Channel bonding operations in wireless communications

An apparatus comprising:

• an interface to access a wireless medium;
• and
• processor electronics coupled with the interface, wherein the processor electronics are configured to:
• control sensing of a group of channels for a channel contention operation that acquires two or more channels of the group of channels and detects a busy channel of the group of channels;
• based on the channel contention operation, determine a channel bonding indicator that signals which ones of the group of channels are component channels;
• generate a preamble portion of a frame that includes the channel bonding indicator;
• generate a data portion of the frame;
• and
• control, via the interface, a transmission of the frame to one or more devices,
• wherein the processor electronics are configured to duplicate a legacy preamble on each of the acquired channels within the preamble portion,
• wherein the processor electronics are configured to set first subcarriers that correspond to the acquired channels to data values within the data portion, and
• wherein the processor electronics are configured to set second subcarriers that correspond to the busy channel to null values for at least a portion of the data portion of the frame.

An apparatus comprising:

• an interface to access a wireless medium;
• and
• processor electronics coupled with the interface, wherein the processor electronics are configured to:
• receive a frame via a group of channels associated with the wireless medium, the group of channels including two or more used channels and a busy channel, the frame comprising a first preamble portion, a second preamble portion, and a data portion, the first preamble portion comprising a channel bonding and bandwidth indicator that signals which ones of the group of channels are component channels, the first preamble portion comprising a legacy preamble duplicated on each of the used channels,
• use the channel bonding and bandwidth indicator to determine the used channels of the group of channels and to decode the second preamble portion via the used channels, the used channels being used within the frame to carry data and preamble information,
• determine whether to decode at least a portion of the data portion based on the second preamble portion, and
• decode at least the portion of the data portion.