Patent ID: 8254300

Claim:
A method of performing re-transmission for a multi-hop communications path, the method comprising: in respect of a plurality of packets: performing a first re-transmission protocol on a per hop basis for each hop of the multi-hop communications path; performing a second re-transmission protocol on an end-to-end basis for the multi-hop communications path; for a particular hop of the multi-hop communications path: for each packet of the plurality of packets, if the first re-transmission protocol fails for the packet for the particular hop, performing at least one additional first re-transmission protocol re-transmission for the packet on that hop; wherein the performance of the first re-transmission protocol on a per-hop basis and the performance of the at least one additional first re-transmission protocol re-transmission is such that the number of first re-transmission protocol re-transmissions allowed for a particular packet on the particular hop is greater than the number of first re-transmission protocol re-transmissions allowed for the particular packet on another hop of the multi-hop communications path.