MANAGING AN ASSIGNMENT OF UNICAST TRAFFIC CHANNELS TO ACCESS TERMINALS PARTICIPATING IN A MULTICAST SESSION WITHIN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

In an embodiment, an access terminal sends a multicast session registration request to an access network. The access network determines whether to assign a unicast traffic channel (e.g., media access control (MAC) identifier (ID)) to the access terminal, for the access terminal to provide feedback (e.g., channel quality indicators (CQIs) associated with the multicast session, based on a number of access terminals that have been assigned unicast traffic channels for the multicast session and/or for applications other than the multicast session. The access network configures a traffic channel assignment message to include an identifier for the multicast session, and to further include an assignment of the unicast traffic channel if the determining step determines to assign the unicast traffic channel to the access terminal. The access network sends the traffic channel assignment message to the access terminal including at least the multicast session identifier.