A scheduler associated with a base station of a wireless communication network dynamically compensates for uplink bandwidth that has been re-assigned (stolen) by a mobile station (MS) to transmit a control message. The scheduler allocates a preset amount of bandwidth to the MS for data transmission. The scheduler detects bandwidth stealing activity and evaluates when bandwidth stealing is justified on he part of the MS. The scheduler provides additional bandwidth to appropriately compensate for the stolen bandwidth when bandwidth stealing is justified, in order to maintain the quality of service of the data traffic connection.