The present invention provides an access point, such as a base station, facilitating wireless communications with a plurality of mobile terminals, which are capable of operating in an active or standby mode. The access point provides active-to-standby transition timers for controlling when to instruct active mobile terminals to enter a standby mode after the end of a communication session. The active-to-standby transition timers have variable values based on one or more Quality of Service (QoS) parameters. Different mobile terminals may be associated with different QoS levels. The values for the active-to-standby transition timers may vary based on their respective QoS levels. The initial values for the active-to-standby transition timers may differ depending on the QoS level for the associated mobile terminal. As the QoS parameters indicate conditions adversely affecting QoS, the active-to-standby timer values may decrease in proportion to the QoS parameters.