Patent ID: 7817605

Claim:
A method of transmitting control signals for uplink transmission of packet data, comprising: transmitting control signal data over a downlink control channel shared by a plurality of users in order to adjust or maintain a transmit rate at which a user is to transmit in an uplink, the downlink control channel including timeslots, each timeslot including a plurality of fields, each field including control signal data for an identified user for controlling uplink transmission of packet data by the identified user, the control signal data in each field including (1) an identifier uniquely identifying the identified user, (2) a first indicator specifying one of an acknowledgment and a negative acknowledgment of a packet transmitted by the identified user and (3) a second indicator specifying the transmit rate at which the identified user is to transmit in the uplink, the first indicator being a first bit value representing either the acknowledgment or the negative acknowledgment, the second indicator being a second bit value representing the transmit rate, the first and second indicators and the identifier being transmitted at the same time.