Patent ID: 8064461

Claim:
An apparatus for performing Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) data packet transfers over a wireless network, comprising: a network interface configured for wireless communication over a network according to a TCP/IP layered communication protocol; a media access communication (MAC) layer within said network interface; wherein an IP data packet structure is used within a wireless data packet frame of a media access communication (MAC) layer; wherein said wireless data packet frame is larger than said IP data packet structure which leaves additional bytes within the wireless data packet frame, which is formatted into multiple blocks; and means for optimizing data transfers as controlled from within said MAC layer by formatting network packets for Internet Protocol (IP) transmission and then using said additional bytes for wireless transmission of Forward Error Correction (FEC) and checksums, and for retransmitting blocks when performing partial packet retransmissions in response to receiving a partial ACK which contains information on error blocks from a receiver; wherein said Internet Protocol (IP) protocol defines a Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size; and wherein said partial packet retransmissions comprise dividing each Internet Protocol (IP) packet into multiple data blocks and adding Forward Error Correction (FEC) or checksum information for the data blocks within said additional bytes available in the wireless data packet frame which are not available in the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) of the IP protocol and retransmitting blocks by attaching the error blocks within said additional bytes within the wireless data packet frame.