Patent ID: 7171163

Claim:
A wireless digital communication system for prioritizing the forwarding of blocks of downlink data, the system including a base station and a plurality of user equipment mobile terminals (UEs), wherein a first subset of the UEs have pending downlink transmissions and a second subset of the UEs do not have pending downlink transmissions, the system comprising: (a) means for the base station to receive blocks of downlink data for distribution to designated ones of the plurality of UEs in the first subset; (b) means for the base station to transmit to each of the designated UEs in the first subset a request to begin downlink channel quality measurements, whereby the base station does not transmit a request to begin downlink channel quality measurements to the UEs in the second subset due to not having pending downlink transmissions; (c) means for each of the designated UEs in the first subset to perform the downlink channel quality measurements; (d) means for each of the designated UEs in the first subset to transmit the results of the downlink channel quality measurements to the base station; (e) means for the base station to establish a priority for the designated UEs in the first subset based on the results of the downlink channel quality measurements; (f) means for the base station to transmit an allocation signal to each of the designated UEs in the first subset; (g) means for each of the designated UEs in the first subset to set up transmission parameters in response to the allocation signal; and (h) means for the base station to transmit the downlink data to the designated UEs in the first subset in accordance with the established priority.