Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate determining when and whether to implement a sender-based data packet scheduling mechanism or a receiver-based data packet scheduling mechanism based on one or mode scheduling factors. For example, a sending node and a receiving node may communicate to permit a determination of which node is more capable of performing the scheduling tasks, and a corresponding scheduling technique may be selected and executed. According to an aspect, an amount of data downloading may be compared to an amount of data uploading at each node, and a sender-based scheduling protocol may be performed when the amount of data uploading is greater than the amount of downloading data.