Reducing zero padding overhead in Multiband OFDM with time diversity

In the current Multiband OFDM standard, (ECMA368), zero padding (ZPS) of length 28.9% of the OFDM symbol duration is appended to each symbol to tackle delay spread. We propose alternate strategies for the QPSK rates (that employ time diversity) in MBOFDM, which can reduce the ZPS overhead by 50% without any performance degradation. This enhances the transmission efficiency calculated in terms of the time required to transmit a packet of given length with a given data rate.