The present invention provides a method for use in a wireless communication system that supports orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) of transmissions over a plurality of subcarriers. One embodiment of the method includes a network entity that allocates one or more of a plurality of sub-bands for communication with an access terminal. Each of the sub-bands includes one or more of the subcarriers and is associated with a corresponding a pseudo-random sequences. The network entity can also transmit one or more of the plurality of pseudo-random sequences over an air interface. The transmitted pseudo-random sequence indicate the sub-bands that are allocated for communication with the access terminal.