Prioritization of connection identifiers for an uplink scheduler in a broadband wireless access communication system

An uplink access method in a mobile subscriber station of a broadband wireless access communication system prioritizes uplink bandwidth allocation according to QoS types of requested service. A scheduling priority is assigned to each type of service flow to guarantee the highest data rate for the high QoS service flows, and then the uplink data grants are scheduled based on this assigned priority. By assigning a priority to each connection based on the service type flow, the higher data rate connections will always have the opportunity to transmit uplink data to fulfill the high data rate QoS requirement, and fragmentation will occur only on the last lowest priority Connection ID (CID) based on the size of the last remaining data grant. The uplink access method further prevents the high priority service from stealing bandwidth from data grants intended for lower priority services by identifying when the data grant is mismatched from the amount requested by the lower level services.