Patent ID: 8249014

Claim:
A base station for a broadband wireless communication system, comprising: a transmitter system for transmitting downlink (DL) traffic to a plurality of subscriber units and a receiver for receiving uplink (UL) traffic from the plurality of subscriber units; and one or more processors having a media access control (MAC) module configured to detect a bandwidth (BW) request in the UL traffic received from a subscriber unit, identify in the BW request a requested amount of UL bandwidth pertaining to a specified connection established at the subscriber unit, determine if bandwidth is available for the subscriber unit, and then allocate to the subscriber unit a granted amount of UL bandwidth, maintain an UL map with uplink bandwidth allocations, dynamically update the UL map to account for the granted amount of UL bandwidth, provide the updated UL map to the transmitter system for transmitting to plurality of subscriber units, and indicate to the subscriber unit that the request has been granted by providing the granted amount of UL bandwidth to the subscriber unit.