Patent ID: 6907460

Claim:
A method for estimating retransmission timeout (RTO J ) used in a communication system to support multiple retransmission of the same packet between a server and a client, the method comprising the steps of: (a) transmitting a plurality of data packets from said server to said client; (b) transmitting a negative acknowledgment (NACK) packet for retransmission by said client if one of said data packets is missing; (c) computing a round-trip delay (RTT i ) corresponding to a latency between sending said NACK packet to said server and receiving the corresponding retransmission of said missing packet from said server; (d) calculating a plurality samples of delay (Δ j ) between the reception of adjacent packets of said plurality of data packets by said client; (e) determining a smoothed inter-packet delay variance (SVARΔ j ) based on said calculated delay samples; and, (f) computing said RTO j based on said determined RTT i and said determined smoothed inter-packet delay variance; wherein said SVARΔ j is determined according to SVARΔ j =(1−β 1 )*SVARΔ j-l +β 1 *D and wherein β 1 being set to 0.25 and D being the absolute difference of Δ j -SVARΔ j-l .