One embodiment of the system and method provides asymmetric adaptive modulation which allows uplink and downlink subframes (304, 302, respectively) of data to be transmitted between a base station (102) and a CPE (104) with different modulation schemes, thus increasing the efficiency of downlink transmissions while maintaining the stability of uplink transmissions. In systems with multiple CPEs, each CPE (104) and base station (102) pair can independently select their uplink and downlink modulation techniques. The system and method are also adaptive in that they adjust the modulation schemes based on, for example, signal to noise ratio measurements or bit error rate measurements.