A distributed wireless communication system includes multiple access points, each with one or more antennas. The access points do not necessarily have synchronized transmitting and receiving radio frequency oscillators. Approaches to channel estimation between the access points and one or more wireless clients account for the lack of synchronization, and do not necessarily require capabilities at the clients that go beyond required or optional features of standard wireless Ethernet (e.g., 802.11n, 802.11g, or 802.11a), thereby supporting “legacy” clients while supporting high data throughput approaches that provide coherent transmission from the multiple antenna of the access points.