Patent ID: 6988236

Claim:
A method for selecting frame encoding parameters to improve transmission performance for a transmitting frame being transmitted from a transmitting station to a receiving station over a transmission medium of a frame-based communications network, the transmitting frame having a header segment and a payload segment, the header segment being transmitted using a fixed set of encoding parameters such that the header segment can be received and decoded by all stations on the network, the payload segment being transmitted using a variable set of payload encoding parameters, the transmitting station sending the transmitting frame using one set of the variable set of payload encoding parameters at a time, comprising the receiving station: receiving and decoding the header and payload segments of each transmitting frame, the decoding including computing frame statistics; selecting a plurality of sets from the variable set of payload encoding parameters to form a possible set of payload encoding parameters; for each set of payload encoding parameters in the possible set of payload encoding parameters, generating, based upon the frame statistics, an estimate of network performance characteristics expected if the transmitting station were to transmit the transmitting frame using that set of payload encoding parameters; selecting, based upon the estimates of expected network performance for each set of payload encoding parameters in the possible set of payload encoding parameters, a set of payload encoding parameters having optimized network performance characteristics.