Phase based preamble detection

An apparatus, comprising:

• a wireless transceiver configured to receive a wireless signal from a wireless device, wherein the received wireless signal includes a preamble sequence and wherein the received preamble sequence is expected to be received within a frequency range that is between two frequency guard bands;
• evaluation logic implemented with at least a circuit or a non-transitory computer-readable medium, configured to evaluate the received wireless signal when the received wireless signal extends outside the frequency range and outside one of the frequency guard bands by:
• (i) determining if a threshold amount of the received preamble sequence is available in the frequency range between the two frequency guard bands, and if the threshold amount is not available, then the evaluation logic is configured to report a failure in identifying the received preamble sequence;
• and
• (ii) if the threshold amount is available, then (a) comparing phases of the received preamble sequence to phases of a plurality of predefined preamble sequences without using amplitude information from the received wireless signal;
• and (b) identifying a matching preamble sequence from the plurality of predefined preamble sequences based at least in part on the phase information without using the amplitude information;
• and
• configuration logic implemented with at least a circuit or a non-transitory computer-readable medium, configured to configure the wireless transceiver to synchronize wireless communications with the wireless device based, at least in part, on the matching preamble sequence.