According to the teachings presented herein, a base station implements active queue management (AQM) for uplink transmissions from user equipment (UE), such as a mobile terminal. The base station, e.g., an eNodeB in a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, uses buffer status reports, for example, to estimate packet delays for packets in the UE's uplink transmit buffer. In one embodiment, a (base station) method of AQM for the uplink includes estimating at least one of a transmit buffer size and a transmit buffer queuing delay for a UE, and selectively dropping or congestion-marking packets received at the base station from the UE. The selective dropping or marking is based on the estimated transmit buffer size and/or the estimated transmit buffer queuing delay.