Patent ID: 8315238

Claim:
A method of transmitting a plurality of data packets from a sending node to a receiving node via a first communication link, an intermediate network processing node, and a second communication link, wherein the first and second communication links have different channel quality characteristics, said method comprising the steps of: receiving by the intermediate network processing node, the data packets transmitted from the sending node, said packets being received over the first communication link with a first level of redundancy sufficient to achieve a predefined error rate when the packets are received at the intermediate network processing node; determining by the intermediate network processing node, a second, different level of redundancy required to achieve the predefined error rate when the packets are transmitted to the receiving node over the second communication link, said determining step based on known channel quality characteristics of the second communication link; and transmitting the data packets from the intermediate network processing node to the receiving node over the second communication link with the second, different level of redundancy sufficient to achieve the predefined error rate when the packets are received at the receiving node.