Patent ID: 8780739

Claim:
In a network including a first network element and a second network element, a data processing method, which comprises: organizing data in frames to obtain data frames at the first network element, the data frames having control information including a cyclic redundancy check content; storing the data frames in a buffer of the first network element; transmitting the data frames from the first network element to the second network element; providing the control information, including the cyclic redundancy check content received at the second network element, from the second network element back to the first network element; if the control information provided back to the first network element corresponds to the control information of a data frame that is the oldest data frame stored in the buffer of the first network element, deleting said data frame from the buffer of the first network element; if the control information provided back to the first network element does not correspond to the control information of any data frame stored in the buffer of the first network element, taking no action; if the control information provided back to the first network element corresponds to the control information of a data frame that is not the oldest data frame stored in the buffer of the first network element, deleting said data frame from the buffer of the first network element and retransmitting data frames older than said data frame from the first network element to the second network.