Patent ID: 7209483

Claim:
In a packet communication system in which packet data is communicated to a first communication station pursuant to an ARQ retransmission scheme upon a communication channel by a second communication station, an improvement of apparatus for the first communication station for facilitating recovery of values of a data packet communicated to the first communication station, said apparatus comprising: a data packet combiner block coupled to receive at least a selected data packet of the packet data together with at least a selected number of retransmissions of the selected data packet, said data packet combiner at least for buffering the selected data packet and the selected number of retransmissions thereof; a decoder coupled to said data packet combiner, said decoder selectably for recovering values of the selected data packet and the selected number of retransmissions thereof, said decoder for selectably decoding the values provided thereto to form a decoded representation of the selected data packet; and a controller coupled to receive indications of channel conditions of the communication channel, said controller operable responsive to the indications of the channel conditions for selecting the selected number of retransmissions buffered at said packet data combiner, together to be provided to said decoder prior to decoding.