Patent ID: 7164654

Claim:
In a system comprising a network and an associated mobile station (MS) for establishing a connection and maintaining a communication channel between them, both the network and the MS capable of acting as a transmitting entity and a receiving entity, the transmitting entity for transmitting messages to the receiving entity and re-transmitting messages according to an acknowledgement procedure, a method for limiting the number of retransmitted messages sent by the transmitting entity, comprising: identifying a first assignment of one or more maximum allowable retransmission (MAR) values across a range of possible data rates for the communication channel by determining current conditions and using statistics and history of similar or equivalent conditions to select efficient MAR values over the range of possible data rates; determining one or more first MAR messages for generating the first assignment of one or more MAR values; receiving one or more first MAR messages, each first MAR message containing a MAR value and data rate information defining one or more ranges of data rates for the communication channel to which the MAR value in the first MAR message is assigned, each MAR value representing a maximum number of allowable retransmissions; processing the one or more first MAR messages to generate the first assignment of one or more MAR values across the range of possible data rates for the communication channel; and limiting a number of retransmitted messages sent by the transmitting entity in accordance with a current data rate of the communication channel and the MAR value assigned to the current data rate.