Method and system for multicarrier communication between a base station and subscribers of different bandwidths

A method comprising:

• determining bandwidth profiles of multicarrier subscriber stations associated with a multicarrier base station, said bandwidth profiles being indicative of operating bandwidths of corresponding multicarrier subscriber stations;
• and
• updating a multicarrier frame structure used to support communication between said base station and said multicarrier subscriber stations based on said bandwidth profiles to generate an updated multicarrier frame structure, said updated multicarrier frame structure including a plurality of time slots that each have a predetermined number of subcarriers distributed across a full channel bandwidth, wherein each multicarrier subscriber station can be one of:
• a full channel subscriber station and a subchannel subscriber station;
• wherein said undated multicarrier frame structure includes one mapping time slot for use by full channel subscriber stations and another mapping time slot for use by subchannel subscriber stations, each of said mapping time slots to include information that is descriptive of said updated multicarrier frame structure.

A computer implemented method comprising:

• determining whether a multicarrier base station is a heterogeneous base station that is capable of servicing multicarrier subscriber stations having different bandwidth profiles, based on a frame received from said multicarrier base station;
• looking for mapping information within an Mth time slot of said frame when said base station is a heterogeneous base station;
• and
• looking for mapping information within an Nth time slot of said frame when said base station is not a heterogeneous base station, wherein M and N are positive, unequal integers;
• wherein said mapping information is descriptive of a present frame structure associated with said base station.

A system comprising:

• at least one dipole antenna to provide a transition between said system and a wireless channel;
• and
• an apparatus, in communication with said at least one dipole antenna, comprising a scheduler to determine bandwidth profiles of multicarrier subscriber stations associated with the base station and to generate an updated multicarrier frame structure for use by the base station to communicate with said multicarrier subscriber stations based on said bandwidth profiles, said bandwidth profiles being indicative of operating bandwidths of corresponding multicarrier subscriber stations, said updated multicarrier frame structure to include a plurality of time slots that each have a predetermined number of subcarriers distributed across a full channel bandwidth, wherein each multicarrier subscriber station can be one of:
• a full channel subscriber station and a subchannel subscriber station;
• wherein said scheduler is to include a single preamble time slot in said updated multicarrier frame structure for use by multicarrier subscriber stations to synchronize to the base station, said single preamble time slot for use by full channel subscriber stations and subchannel subscriber stations.

An article comprising a computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a computing platform, operate to:

• determine bandwidth profiles of multicarrier subscriber stations associated with a multicarrier base station, said bandwidth profiles being indicative of operating bandwidths of corresponding multicarrier subscriber stations;
• and
• update a multicarrier frame structure used to support communication between said multicarrier base station and said multicarrier subscriber stations based on said bandwidth profiles to generate an updated multicarrier frame structure, said updated multicarrier frame structure to include a plurality of time slots that each have a predetermined number of subcarriers distributed across a full channel bandwidth, wherein each multicarrier subscriber station can be one of:
• a full channel subscriber station and a subchannel subscriber station;
• wherein said updated multicarrier frame structure is to include a maximum of one ranging time slot for use by multicarrier subscriber stations to request assignment of one or more data time slots, said one ranging time slot for use by full channel subscriber stations and subchannel subscriber stations.