Method and system for efficient addressing and power savings in wireless systems

1. A method for enabling power savings in wireless communications comprising:

assigning stations to a number of groups;

signaling a group identifier to each station;

indicating the group identifier in a frame for each group that has data in the frame; and

entering a power saving mode by one of the stations on a condition that the group identifier for that station is not present in the frame.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the assigning includes assigning the stations based on applying a function to a medium access control address of each station.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the function is a hashing function.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the assigning includes any one of:

assigning the stations based on respective medium access control addresses;

assigning the stations based on a traffic utilization value of each station;

assigning the stations based on frame aggregation requirements;

assigning the stations based on data rate;

assigning the stations based on power level;

assigning the stations based on quality of service requirements;

assigning the stations based on application requirements;

assigning the stations based on radio resource management requirements; or

assigning the stations into more than one group.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the signaling includes sending a message to a station, the message containing the group identifier.

6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein the message is any of: initiator aggregation control frame, responder aggregation control frame, ready to send frame, clear to send frame, modulation coding scheme request frame, modulation coding scheme feedback frame, block acknowledgement request frame, block acknowledgement frame, association request frame, association response frame, re-association request frame, re-association response frame, contention-free poll frame, or quality of service poll frame.

7. The method according to claim 5 , wherein the message is a group assignment message.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the indicating includes any of:

using a field in the frame to include the group identifier; or

using a field in the frame to indicate which groups do not have data in the frame.

9. The method according to claim 8 , wherein the field includes a bitmap, the position of each bit in the bitmap identifies a group number, and the value of the bit indicates whether the group has data in the frame.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the station remains in the power saving mode for at least a portion of the frame.

11. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:

receiving a request from a station to be re-assigned to a different group.

12. The method according to claim 11 , wherein the request is received on a condition that the station indicates a low power condition.