A method is described for transmitting data from a mobile station to a wireless network, as is a wireless communications system that operates in accordance with the method. The method includes (a) requesting permission to transmit data using an access channel; (b) in response to receiving a permission message from the wireless network, transmitting the data from the mobile station to the wireless network over a control channel using a modulation and channel coding scheme determined in the wireless network, and communicated to mobile station in the permission message; and (c) in response to receiving the transmitted data at the wireless network, soft combining the received data with previously received data, if any, until a desired decoding result is achieved, and transmitting an acknowledgment of data reception to the mobile station. The steps of transmitting and receiving preferably use a code division, multiple access technique.