At least one operating condition is determined for a first mobile subscriber station (104) that is operating in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) network. The first mobile subscriber station (104) is handed off from a base station (102) to a relay station (110). Based upon the at least one operating condition, at least one sub-channel is subsequently assigned from a plurality of sub-channels of a frequency band to the first mobile subscriber station (104) in order to provide an assigned sub-channel resource to the first mobile subscriber station (104). The assigned sub-channel resource can potentially be any of the plurality of sub-channels of the frequency band.