Patent ID: 8149778

Claim:
A mobile terminal for transmitting uplink signaling information in a cellular communication system, the mobile terminal comprising: a scheduling assistance data generator configured for generating scheduling assistance data for a base station based scheduler, the scheduling assistance data relating to physical resource allocation for uplink packet data transmission from the mobile terminal; a transmitter operable to transmit the scheduling assistance data from the mobile terminal in a first physical resource of an uplink air interface, the first physical resource comprising a plurality of physical channels that are not scheduled by the base station based scheduler, and operable to transmit the scheduling assistance data using a second physical resource of the uplink air interface, wherein, the first physical resource is arranged to provide an identifier of the mobile terminal, and the second physical resource comprising a plurality of shared physical channels that are shared amongst a plurality of mobile terminals; and a channel controller operable to select between the first physical resource and the second physical resource in response to a resource availability of the first physical resource and the second physical resource.