A system and method of managing the bandwidth of transmitted communications in a wireless network where a data packet (108) is received. The data packet (108) comprises a protocol identifier (110). At least one primary pattern identifier (110) is stored in a memory (103). The protocol identifier (110) is compared (204, 206) to the at least one primary pattern identifier and a data packet type is determined (210) based at least in part upon the comparing. A resource allocation scheme is selected from amongst a plurality of resource allocation schemes for application to a wireless network based at least in part upon the data packet type.