The present document generally relates to wireless communications and to assignments within the wireless communication systems.
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communications such as voice, data, video and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple access terminals by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems. Typically, a wireless communication system comprises several base stations, wherein each base station communicates with the mobile station using a forward link and each mobile station (or access terminal) communicates with base station using a reverse link.
Generally, when a transmitter of an access point (AP) or an Access Terminal (AT) completes transmitting a set of actual data, a break (also referred to as “a gap”) in transmission occurs before transmitting another set of actual data packets. The gap in data transmission refers to duration of time when no actual data is transmitted on the assigned resource. In a typical communication system, in the case of the access point transmitter, a possibility exists that the gap in transmission may be construed as a loss of the assigned resource. In this case, those resources are lost and bandwidth that is available is not fully utilized. Further, the gap in transmission may be interpreted as an indication that the assigned resources have been deassigned. In both cases, the bandwidth is not optimally utilized and may lower the quality and reliability of the communication system.