Methods for concurrent link setup and downlink data retrieval for high efficiency wlan

A method for use in a station (STA) comprising:

• receiving, from an access point (AP), a trigger frame indicating one or more orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) resources for uplink OFDMA-based random access by unassociated STAs, wherein the STA is unassociated with the AP;
• transmitting, to the AP, an association request frame using one of the one or more OFDMA resources for the uplink OFDMA-based random access;
• and
• receiving, from the AP, a multi-STA acknowledgment (ACK)/block ACK (BA) using resources including the one or more OFDMA resources.

An access point (AP) comprising:

• a processor;
• a receiver;
• and
• a transmitter,
• the processor and the transmitter configured to transmit, to a station (STA), a trigger frame indicating one or more orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) resources for uplink OFDMA-based random access by unassociated STAs, wherein the STA is unassociated with the AP;
• the processor and the receiver configured to receive, from the STA, an association request frame via one of the one or more OFDMA resources for the uplink OFDMA-based random access;
• and
• the processor and the transmitter configured to transmit, to the STA, a multi-STA acknowledgment (ACK)/block ACK (BA) using resources including the one or more OFDMA resources.