SummaryNormally IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) is used for mainly downlink traffic applications. However in the upper tier of 2‐tier (WiMAX‐WiFi) wireless sensor network, the uplink bandwidth faces bottlenecks for high throughput. In this paper, a solution has been proposed for this limitation of uplink bandwidth allocation through the use of queuing theoretic performance modeling. A Markov‐modulated Poisson process traffic model has been formed for orthogonal frequency division multiple access‐based transmission along with discrete time Markov chain system model for queuing. A downlink traffic pattern has been defined for wireless sensor network nodes. Analytical methods are used to estimate the performance parameters like throughput, delay, and probability of packet drop for resource allocation. An algorithm is formulated to find out minimum resource requirement for downlink and to transfer rest of the resources to uplink bandwidth allocation, for throughput enhancement. Uplink frame utilization is determined through another discrete time Markov chain model for adaptive triggering between the proposed maximum and the normal downlink to uplink ratio operations, for efficient distribution of bandwidth resources. Algorithm and simulation results prove outstanding improvement in the uplink throughput around 50%, without degrading the downlink throughput.