Patent ID: 8787384

Claim:
A method of receiving data, comprising: receiving a transmission of data, the data comprising multiple packets; processing the received transmission to decode the multiple packets; and generating pre-emptive acknowledgement (ACK) information for the multiple packets prior to decoding all of the multiple packets, wherein the generating pre-emptive ACK information for the multiple packets comprises generating pre-emptive ACK information for the multiple packets after decoding L packets among the multiple (K) packets, where L is one or greater and is less than K, and L is selected based on an amount of time available for the decoding of the L packets prior to a corresponding ACK transmission time, wherein the L packets may include a sufficient number of decoded packets to obtain the desired accuracy for the pre-emptive ACK information, wherein more decoded packets corresponds to greater accuracy in the pre-emptive ACK information; and wherein the pre-emptive ACK information is set to an ACK if all of the L packets are decoded correctly and set to a negative acknowledgment (NAK) if any one of the L packets is decoded in error.