A system and method schedule series of packets for transmission between terminals in a single wireless channel of a packet-switched local area network. The local area network can operate in an ad hoc mode or in infrastructure mode. A transmission rate is assigned to each of the terminals. The terminals can be mobile. Different terminals can be assigned different transmission rates, depending on a quality of the channel. That is, terminals transmitting via an error-free channel are assigned a higher transmission rate than terminals transmitting via an error-prone channel. Then, the series of packets are scheduled for transmission between the terminals such that each terminal receives a substantially equal amount of transmission time over an extended period of time.