An additional cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is inserted in IEEE 802.11 beacon or data frames prior to the end of the frame, at a location following information sufficient for the receiving station to determine whether the frame is from an overlapping basic service set or intended for a different station and to extract other necessary or useful information such as a time of the next full beacon. Upon detecting the CRC, the receiving STA can terminate reception of the frame early to conserve power, and then enter a low power operational mode to further conserve power.