Patent ID: 8472382

Claim:
In a base station having an air interface, a method comprising: at the base station, during a first nominal time interval equal to one frame, receiving a first transmission on the air interface from a first access terminal being served by the base station, and upon completion of the first nominal time interval, making a first determination that the first transmission has not been successfully decoded into a frame of data, wherein the completion of the first nominal time interval corresponds to a first nominal end time; at the base station, in response to making the first determination, commencing at the first nominal end time a first extended decoding interval during which attempted decoding of the first transmission continues; at the base station, determining an aggregate error rate for transmissions received from a plurality of access terminals communicating with the base station; at the base station, determining a first virtual end time of the first extended decoding interval based on the determined aggregate error rate, the determined first virtual end time being measured from the first nominal end time; and at the base station, continuing attempted decoding of the first transmission until the determined first virtual end time of the first extended decoding interval is reached.