Patent ID: 8351844

Claim:
A method comprising: identifying a timer value associated with a network channel in a communications network; determining whether a command corresponding to the network channel is received out of sequence in a most recent period indicated by the timer value; identifying a first adjustment to the timer value based on determining whether the command is received out of sequence, the first adjustment to the timer value providing an adjusted timer value; determining a number of times that a particular command is received; identifying a second adjustment to the adjusted timer value based on determining the number of times that the particular command is received, the second adjustment to the adjusted timer value providing a resulting timer value; determining whether the resulting timer value is outside of a range of allowed adjustment results; based on determining that the resulting timer value is not outside of the range of allowed adjustment results, identifying an upper bound and a lower bound associated with the resulting timer value; selecting a random or pseudo-random number between the upper bound and the lower bound; and establishing a new timer value based on the selected random or pseudo-random number.