Method and apparatus for indicating allocation of distributed communication resources

A user equipment receiving downlink data using resource blocks in a wireless mobile communication system, the user equipment comprising:

• data processing circuitry configured to control an operation of the user equipment;
• and
• a receiver, coupled to the data processing circuitry, configured to receive downlink control information including resource allocation information for the downlink data from a base station and to receive the downlink data mapped to physical resource blocks (PRBs) based on the downlink control information,
• wherein:
• the resource allocation information indicates virtual resource block (VRB) allocations for the user equipment;
• each resource block corresponds to one time slot;
• a resource block pair includes a first resource block associated with a first time slot and a second resource block associated with a second time slot adjacent to the first time slot, where the first and second resource blocks are allocated to the same frequency indices;
• a mapping relationship between VRB pairs and PRB pairs exists such that frequency consecutive VRB pairs are mapped to non-frequency consecutive PRB pairs and that each resource block pair is split so there is a frequency gap between the first and second parts of the resource block pair;
• and
• the resource allocation information indicates the frequency gap size is one of a first value and a second different value.