SUBCARRIER POWER ALLOCATION IN A WIRELESS MULTI-CARRIER COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM

Novel techniques for pooling the available transmit power of a beam across the subcarriers that are or that are scheduled to be in use (and not across all available subcarriers) are disclosed. The scheduled subcarriers may be located in the same or different carriers of a modulation transmitter modulation system, and the pooled transmit power may be allocated or distributed across the scheduled subcarriers of the beam. Modulation symbols or resource elements may be transmitted in accordance with allocated, per-subcarrier power budgets, thereby maximizing the SNIR of signals that are transmitted in the beam via the scheduled subcarriers. Additionally, the allocation of the pooled transmit power to various subcarriers may continuously and/or dynamically vary over time, e.g., based on traffic demands, interference characteristics, etc., as well as based on subsequent scheduling of subcarriers to transmit subsequent modulation symbols or resource elements.