Systems and methods of scheduling sub-carriers in an OFDMA system in which a scheduler takes into account channel conditions experienced by the communication devices to optimize channel conditions. The scheduler can partition a set of sub-carriers spanning an operating bandwidth into a plurality of segments. The segments can include a plurality of global segments that each includes a distinct non-contiguous subset of the sub-carriers spanning substantially the entire operating bandwidth. One or more of the global segments can be further partitioned into a plurality of local segments that each has a bandwidth that is less than a channel coherence bandwidth. The scheduler determines channel characteristics experienced by each communication device via reporting or channel estimation, and allocates one or more segments to communication links for each device according to the channel characteristics.