Patent ID: 8923123

Claim:
A method for controlling packet transmission rates, comprising: providing at least one unique marking bit in a physical layer of a plurality of packets to be transmitted by a single sender to a plurality of receivers according to a multicast protocol, the at least one unique marking bit being an Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) packet marking; recognizing the at least one unique marking bit in the physical layer of the plurality of packets as received by at least one of the plurality of receivers; tracking packet losses by the at least one of the plurality of receivers by detecting a loss of an ECN marked packet by the at least one of the plurality of receivers; providing feedback messages to the single sender including information regarding packet losses for the plurality of receivers based on the tracking; executing, by a processor, a rate calculation algorithm based on the provided feedback messages; and adjusting, with the processor, a transmission rate for the single sender based on a result of the rate calculation algorithm, the result of the rate calculation algorithm ignoring losses attributable to at least one blockage in a wireless communication channel.