In this paper, we propose an analytical model to evaluate the average packet delay and its standard deviation in a saturated IEEE 802.16 network. In addition, the bandwidth utilization of an uplink data frame and packet loss probability are also derived from the model. We show that our analytical model is accurate for a range of parameters by comparing it with simulation results. Using the analytical model we then suggest an appropriate parameter setting for the uplink data frame to better utilize the bandwidth and to minimize the packet loss probability for both saturated and unsaturated networks.