METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REDUCING RADIO LINK SUPERVISION TIME IN A HIGH DATA RATE SYSTEM

A method of supervising on the forward link in a high data rate system is disclosed, wherein a base station transmits to an access terminal on a forwa rd traffic channel only when the base station has data to send to the access terminal. The base station minimizes the worst-case period necessary to reclaim traffic channel resources following a release by periodically transmitting a configuration packet to its access terminals. The configurati on packet indicates the allocation status of the traffic channels belonging to the base station. If an access terminal receives a configuration packet indicating the deallocation of one or all of its traffic channels, the acces s terminal immediately ceases its use of those traffic channels. If an access terminal fails to successfully decode a configuration packet for a predetermined supervision time, the access terminal releases its connection with all base stations and associated traffic channels.