The present invention provides an improved random access channel protocol, wherein different user elements may be associated with different priority levels. Based on relative priority, the user elements may have different probabilities for deciding when to retransmit a previously transmitted packet upon receiving information from an access point indicating that the packet needs to be retransmitted. A buffer is provided for storing a packet to transmit, and the buffer is associated with a stack counter, which is incremented or decremented to or from a nominal value to determine when to transmit or retransmit the packet stored in the buffer. Based on the relative priority, feedback information from the access point may cause the stack counter for a packet needing to be retransmitted to stay at the nominal value, wherein retransmission will occur at the next available time slot, or it may increase the stack counter by one or more levels.