Patent ID: 8290023

Claim:
A method of compensating for information not received in a communication system, the method comprising: creating an encoded signal at a transmitter from a source signal using a forward error correction technique, wherein the encoded signal is identical to a second encoded signal created at a second transmitter; splitting the encoded signal into a plurality of units; spreading a first unit of the plurality of units; transmitting the first unit of the plurality of units to a first receiver and a second receiver; and determining whether the first unit of the plurality of units should be transmitted based in part on a first received acknowledgement message from the first receiver and a second received acknowledgement message from the second receiver, wherein the first received acknowledgement message is received at a first time based on a slot start time and a first random timing offset, wherein the first received acknowledgement message is received while at least a portion of a second signal is received from a second node, and wherein the second signal is received at a second time based upon the slot start time and a second random timing offset.