Method and apparatus for performing uplink random access in a wireless communication system

A method of operating a mobile station (MS) for uplink (UL) random access in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:

• receiving a control message comprising random access channel information from a base station (BS);
• selecting a frame for minimizing a collision during a contention-based random access, based on the random access channel information;
• determining whether data to be transmitted using the selected frame is an access class with at least an equal priority to a received access class comprised in the random access channel information;
• and
• transmitting to the BS a contention-based random access bandwidth request for the data to be transmitted.

A mobile station (MS) apparatus for uplink (UL) random access in a wireless communication system, the apparatus comprising:

• a receiver configured to receive a control message comprising random access channel information from a base station (BS);
• a controller configured to select a frame for minimizing a collision during a contention-based random access based on the random access channel information and, determine whether data to be transmitted using the selected frame is an access class with at least an equal priority to a received access class comprised in the random access channel information;
• and
• a transmitter configured to transmit to the BS a contention-based random access bandwidth request, for the data to be transmitted.