e rach the forward access channel fach and the paging channel pch the enhanced mac e es entity 419 may also include an access class control module the wtru 410 may transition to the cell_fach state when there is uplink data to transmit or it is already in the cell_dch state and the network moves it to the cell_fach state for lack of activity etc the wtru 410 may be configured to maintain the enhanced mac e es entity as long as it is able to transmit uplink data on the e dch the wtru 410 may further be configured to maintain the enhanced mac e es entity when operating in idle mode when an rrc connection request is initiated by the wtru 410 the node b 420 may be configured with x enhanced mac e entities enhanced mac e 1 to enhanced mac e x where x is the number of common e dch resources for all types of traffic each enhanced mac e entity may include an e dch scheduling module an e dch control module a de multiplexing module and a harq module the enhanced mac e entities may also be configured to read the e rnti used for contention resolution the enhanced mac e entities may be configured to communicate with wtrus that have not been assigned a u rnti or e rnti.