An OFDM system and method using amplitude shift keying (ASK) for subcarrier modulation is provided. Because ASK is used, the signal of each symbol in time domain is conjugate-symmetric. In addition, among the discrete numbers of each symbol, two of them are always real. These properties are utilized such that only half of the numbers of each symbol sequence are transmitted. The generated baseband signal can be a complex or a real signal. As a result, the bandwidth efficiency of the derived ASK-OFDM is the same as that of QAM-OFDM.