Methods and systems herein provide better downlink (DL) data throughput for cell-edge stations (CE STAs). The systems enable protection from a third-party collision during a wideband DL data transmission to the cell edge STA, when the wideband control frame, such as clear-to-send (CTS) or acknowledge (ACK), transmission from a cell edge STA cannot reach the AP. This process can be achieved by designing a new wideband control frame comprising: a legacy preamble sent over the primary 20 MHz channel that can be decoded by the legacy STAs, a new preamble sent over the primary 20 MHz channel that can be used to identify the new wideband control frame (this new preamble has the total signal bandwidth information for the rest of the packet following the new preamble); and duplicate legacy control packets set over the total bandwidth indicated in the new preamble (the legacy control packets can be decoded by the legacy STAs).