A method and a system for maintaining a desired prescribed link quality from a communications terminal to a central node in a communications link system are described. A communication signal is transmitted from the communications terminal at a normal data rate on any given communication channel to the central node. The central node receiver then will order the communications terminal to step down its data rate if the central node receives poor signal quality. Then the central node will adopt its receiver channel bandwidth to the new lower data rate to obtain a desired power density per Hertz bandwidth, and simultaneously the central node will reallocate bandwidth no longer used for the particular communication terminal at the lower data rate to make this portion of its total bandwidth available for another channel in the communications link system. The method and system thereby provide an effective utilization of the available bandwidth at the system node. In a typical application the central node may be a communications satellite where it will be essential, due to interference and dynamical limitations, to maintain a desired power density per Hertz bandwidth.