Patent ID: 8730968

Claim:
A method of operating a communication system comprising a first station and a second station, the first station transmitting to the second station frames formed by data packets and the second station transmitting to the first station frames having acknowledgement fields for the data packets and transmission gaps, the method comprising acts of: mapping an acknowledgement field which directly corresponds to a second frame according to a time offset to: a data packet of the second frame when an acknowledgement field of a first frame according to the time offset does not fall at least partly in a transmission gap, and a single data packet of one of the first and second frames when the acknowledgement field of the first frame according to the time offset falls at least partly in the transmission gap; and determining, only when the acknowledgement field of the first frame according to the time offset falls at least partly in the transmission gap, that the single data packet is transmitted only in: the first frame such that only the first frame which immediately precedes the second frame in time contains a packet which is the single data packet and the second frame does not contain a packet if a parameter related to the first frame is greater than a threshold value, and the second frame if the parameter related to the first frame is less than the threshold value, and is determined fully autonomously by the second station, partially autonomously by the second station within a range signaled by the first station, or dictated by the first station.