The invention relates to a multicarrier communication system employing explicit frequency hopping. Variable bandwidth assignment and frequency hopping are employed to make efficient use of radio resources. Variable bandwidth assignment is achieved by dynamically allocating different numbers of subcarriers to different wireless communication devices depending on their instantaneous channel conditions. The frequency hopping patterns are determined on-the-fly based on the current bandwidth assignments. The bandwidth assignments and frequency hopping patterns are signaled to the wireless communication devices in a scheduling grant.