Patent ID: 8312337

Claim:
A method of increasing data throughput in a wireless communications network over which a radio frequency (RF) signal is transmitted between a base station (BS) and a mobile station (MS) over a communications channel having a time-varying measure of quality, the method comprising: establishing a service flow (SF) and initially enabling a hybrid automated repeat request (HARQ) protocol between the BS and the MS; determining, at a particular time, the measure of quality of the communications channel; comparing the determined measure of quality with a predetermined channel quality threshold; selectively disabling the HARQ protocol based upon a first comparison result while continuing the SF between the BS and MS; after selectively disabling the HARQ protocol: determining, at a subsequent time, that the time-varying measure of quality of the communications channel has deteriorated below the predetermined channel quality threshold; and selectively reenabling the HARQ protocol in the established SF, wherein, after the HARQ protocol is selectively enabled, the time-varying measure of quality of the communications channel is determined by evaluating a metric m comprising a ratio of a Standard Deviation (SD) of a Physical Carrier-to-Interference-Ratio (PCINR) reported by the MS to a packet error rate r determined by the BS, wherein the metric m=SD/r, and wherein r=NACK/(ACK+NACK).