A receiver is operated so as to receive data conveyed on an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed (OFDM) signal transmitted on a plurality of sub-carriers. Such operation includes ascertaining which of the plurality of sub-carriers have a channel quality that satisfies one or more criteria. Then, sub-carriers are selected based at least in part on whether they have the channel quality that satisfies one or more criteria. The receiver then fully processes data streams only from the selected sub-carriers, wherein fully processing data streams comprises sub-carrier channel estimation or sub-carrier equalization or both sub-carrier channel estimation and sub-carrier equalization.