PHY sub-channel processing

Physical layer (PHY) sub-channel processing. A soft symbol decision stream is arranged into a number of sub-channels to reduce substantially the processing performed within a communication receiver on data that is not intended for that communication receiver. In other embodiments, a predetermined approach is employed to arrange the soft symbol decision stream into one or more frames; each frame may have one or more soft symbol blocks; and each soft symbol block may have one or more symbols. Each of the soft symbol blocks, within a frame, may be assigned to a sub-channel. Only the soft symbol blocks that contain information destined for the communication receiver need be decoded. Only the sub-channel that includes these soft symbol blocks, destined for this communication receiver, need be decoded. The soft symbol blocks not within the sub-channel may be discarded thereby recovering some of the processing capabilities of the communication receiver.