Patent ID: 8553547

Claim:
A system for transmitting packets over a network of communication channels, the system comprising: first and second nodes in communication with a coax backbone, said first node comprising a retransmission buffer; and a network access coordinator operative to coordinate access of the first and second nodes to the coax backbone, wherein access time to the coax backbone is divided into cycles that are managed by the network access coordinator where access rules for a current cycle are described in a message transmitted by the network access coordinator to the first and second nodes during a previous cycle; wherein, in the current cycle at least one packet is transmitted by the first node to the second node, the at least one packet being stored by the first node in the retransmission buffer and, the at least one packet comprising: an indication that retransmission service is applied; and a length corresponding to the at least one packet; and if, during the current cycle the at least one packet is not received by the second node: the second node is operative to send a frame indicating a loss of the at least one packet to the network access coordinator during a subsequent cycle; and the first node is operative to retrieve the at least one packet from the retransmission buffer and transmit the at least one packet no earlier than two subsequent cycles.