In a wireless multiple access communications system (Fig. 1) the channel resource is managed partitioning the channel resource into an acknowledgment channel and a traffic channel in a fixed manner, each of which carries its respective segments (Fig. 3). A traffic segment (Fig, 2, #202) is the basic resource unit to convey data, and has a prescribed finite time interval and bandwidth. Each traffic segment is associated with an acknowledgment segment in a one-to-one manner (Fig. 3). The acknowledgment segment conveys acknowledgment information of the associated traffic segment (Fig. 5, 502), and both the base station (Fig, 1, #101) and the wireless terminals (Fig. 1, #103-1…Y) use the acknowledgment segment to acknowledge associated traffic segments. The base station and the wireless terminal monitors all the acknowledgment segments associated with the segments it transmitted (Fig, 5, #503) and determines if any segments need to be retransmitted (Fig, 5, #504). The wireless terminal also performs retransmission of its respective segments (Fig. 6).