Gain control for reduced interframe spacing (RIFS)

A method and apparatus is disclosed to recover at least one information payload from a frame and/or to configure one or more reception parameters to receive a future frame to support RIFS. A physical layer device (PHY) receives at least a training sequence embedded in the frame of a transmitted communication signal using a receiver filter bandwidth corresponding to a variable filter training sequence bandwidth. The PHY determines an amount of gain necessary to recover an information payload embedded in the frame based on the recovery of the training sequence. The PHY determines an amount of gain necessary to recover an information payload embedded in the frame based on the recovery of the preamble. A previous communications receiver gain is adjusted by the difference between the amount of gain necessary to recover the information payload and the previous communications receiver gain. The PHY adjusts the receiver filter bandwidth from the variable filter training sequence bandwidth to a variable filter information payload bandwidth. The PHY recovers the at least one information payload embedded in frame using the variable filter information payload bandwidth. The PHY adjusts the receiver filter bandwidth from the information payload bandwidth to the variable filter training sequence bandwidth to receive the future frame.