A method and apparatus for generating a permutation for forward link hopping is provided, comprising initializing permutation constants, determining a value for p such that i is less than 2p wherein i is a first counter, initializing a second counter j to ‘0’, setting x to i+1 wherein x is index of elements of an array A, clocking a Pseudo-noise (PN) register n times to generate a pseudorandom number, setting x to p Least Significant Bits (LSB) of the pseudorandom number, incrementing j by 1, determining if x is greater than i, setting x equal to x−i, if x is greater than i, swapping the ith and xth element in the array A, decrementing counter i by 1, and mapping a set of hop-ports to a set of sub-carriers based upon the generated hop-permutation.