According to one aspect of the invention, a method is provided in which a
group of users in a system that employs a retransmission mechanism such
as Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) is divided into multiple sub-groups of
users. Each user is assigned a number of channels for transmission of
information. The number of channels assigned to each user is determined
based, at least in part, on the number of the sub-groups and a number of
channels available in the system. Transmission intervals are alternated
among the multiple sub-groups such that only one of the sub-groups of
users is allowed to transmit information during any transmission
interval. An idle interval during which a particular user in the first
group does not transmit information is used as a waiting period for
acknowledgement of a previous transmission by the particular user.