Medium access control feedback mechanism for uplink resource management in wireless TDMA packet data systems

The shared channel feedback (SCF) procedures and fields as specified in IS-136 DCCH are not well-suited for long packet data transactions and do not facilitate flexible sharing of resources among users. We describe a simple and robust packet channel feedback (PCF) mechanism for an IS-136 based TDMA packet data channel (PDCH) by identifying the minimal set of functions and fields required to manage both contention access and reserved access. The proposed scheme has fewer error conditions, unambiguous state transitions and better performance under error conditions. The PCF scheme provides considerable flexibility in assigning bandwidth to multiple users and allows the efficient management of contention, reservation and scheduling on each sub-channel without wasted slots.