Patent ID: 7609632

Claim:
A code division multiple access (CDMA) communication device comprising: a first medium access controller (MAC) entity configured to output a first control channel and a dedicated traffic channel (DTCH), the first MAC entity being a MAC-dedicated (MAC-d) entity and the first control channel being a dedicated control channel (DCCH); and a second MAC entity configured to generate an access channel, the second MAC entity including: a channel multiplexer configured to receive data, the data being carried by the first control channel, the DTCH, and a second control channel, the channel multiplexer also being configured to multiplex the received data; a scheduling mechanism configured to receive the multiplexed data and schedule the multiplexed data for transmission on the access channel according to a priority of the received data; and a flow control entity configured to limit buffering of a portion of the received data in the second MAC entity, the portion of the received data being associated with the first control channel and the DTCH, wherein the access channel is a forward access channel (FACH).