Patent ID: 6570843
Filing Date: 2003-05-27
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A method for minimizing the number of packets required for retransmission from a transmitter to a receiver, the transmitter having already transmitted over a forward channel N number of packets to the receiver, and the receiver having already reported over a back channel to the transmitter information regarding which of the N packets were successfully received, said method comprising the steps of:(1) determining from the reported back channel information a number S of successfully received packets; (2) determining whether S is less that a target packet number T; (3) if so, determining a projected number of packets P equal to S plus the number of packets that already exist in a packet accumulator and were not successfully received by the receiver; (4) determining whether P is less than T; (5) if so, adding to the packet accumulator a packet not successfully received by the receiver and incrementing P by one; (6) determining whether P is equal to T and if not, repeating step (5) until P is equal to T; and (7) wherein N, P, S and T are integers and greater than 0.