Patent ID: 8477608

Claim:
A method for controlling conformance of a data flow in a communication system to a traffic definition associated with a specified quality of service, the communication system having a transmitter and a receiver, the method comprising the steps of: providing a data flow consisting of data units of an upper layer in a protocol stack and a traffic definition for said data flow; transporting the data flow by data packets of an underlying layer in the protocol stack sent from the transmitter to the receiver; sending, by the receiver, responses identifying received data packets to the transmitter for the data packets transporting the data flow; the transmitter utilizing a control function of the underlying layer for controlling the number of sent data packets for which no response is received, according to a limit for the number of outstanding data packets; obtaining a predefined conditioning criterion for the data flow, the conditioning criterion being associated with the traffic definition, determining, at the receiver, a conformance parameter for the received data packets transporting the data flow, wherein if the conditioning criterion is fulfilled according to the determined conformance parameter, the receiver sending acknowledgments for all received data packets, and if the conditioning criterion is violated according to the determined conformance parameter, the receiver sending acknowledgments for only a part of the received data packets for controlling the number of transmitted data packets.