Channel estimation for low-overhead communication in a network

A station comprising:

• first antenna;
• a symbol processing module configured to sample values of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol starting at a time associated with a time slot boundary, after receipt of the OFDM symbol by the station from a shared medium, the OFDM symbol comprising at least a first set of frequency components modulated with preamble information and a second set of frequency components modulated with non-preamble information;
• and
• a demodulator/decoder module configured to:
• process the sampled values based, at least in part, on first channel characteristics estimated from the first set of frequency components to decode the non-preamble information encoded on a first subset of the second set of frequency components, and
• process the sampled values based, at least in part, on second channel characteristics estimated from the first set of frequency components and the first subset of the second set of frequency components to decode the non-preamble information encoded on a second subset of the second set of frequency components.

A method comprising:

• receiving, at a receiving station coupled to a shared medium, at least a first orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol via the shared medium, the first OFDM symbol comprising a first set of frequency components modulated with preamble information and a second set of frequency components modulated with non-preamble information;
• sampling values of the first OFDM symbol starting at a time associated with a time slot boundary;
• processing the sampled values based, at least in part, on first channel characteristics estimated from the first set of frequency components to decode the non-preamble information encoded on a first subset of the second set of frequency components;
• and
• processing the sampled values based, at least in part, on second channel characteristics estimated from the first set of frequency components and the first subset of the second set of frequency components to decode the non-preamble information encoded on a second subset of the second set of frequency components.