Patent ID: 7599329

Claim:
An apparatus to transmit data wirelessly using a shared resource, comprising: a transmitter; a processing unit operably connected to said transmitter; a storage medium operably connected to said processing unit; a plurality of vectors stored on said storage medium, each vector corresponding to an available usage rate in a set of available usage rates, said plurality of vectors including at least a first vector corresponding to a first available usage rate and a second vector corresponding to said first available usage rate; wherein said storage medium comprises instructions to cause the apparatus to choose one of said plurality of vectors based on at least one of: i) time, ii) a quality of service, and iii) a reduction in service; wherein said storage medium comprises instructions to request a grant of the available usage rate corresponding to the chosen one of said plurality of vectors; and wherein said available usage rate corresponding to the chosen one of said plurality of vectors is a data transmission rate for transmitting said data to a base station.