Patent ID: 8705384

Claim:
A method comprising: detecting, with a receiver device, that a packet received from a transmitter is corrupted; determining whether to send a positive acknowledgement for the packet to the transmitter; wherein the determining whether to send the positive acknowledgement comprises determining to send the positive acknowledgement if (a) detecting that the packet is corrupted, if (b) a reduction in a transmission rate by the transmitter will decrease a likelihood of a successful frame transmission sequence; and if (c) determining to prevent a rate adaptation algorithm of the transmitter from further decreasing the transmission rate; and sending, with the receiver device, the positive acknowledgement for the packet to the transmitter if determining to send the positive acknowledgement; wherein a lack of reception of the positive acknowledgement by the transmitter is expected to cause the rate adaptation algorithm of the transmitter to decrease the transmission rate; wherein the determining of whether to send the positive acknowledgement is based on at least one or more characteristics of channel interference and comprises determining an estimated time period between bursts of the channel interference; and wherein the determining whether to send the positive acknowledgement is based on at least the estimated time period between bursts of the channel interference and comprises: determining a packet transmission time period that would result from the reduction in the transmission rate by the transmitter; comparing the packet transmission time period to a percentage of the time period between bursts of the channel interference; and determining to send the positive acknowledgement if the reduction in the transmissions rate is expected to cause a packet length of subsequent transmissions to increase beyond a length of an available free-time between bursts of the channel interference.