Patent ID: 7561523

Claim:
A method of transmitting data to multiple receiving devices over a network, comprising the steps of: organizing a set of data transfer units into a plurality of subsets of said set of data transfer units, each subset including two or more data transfer units, each subset of said set of data transfer units for transmission by a transmitting device to multiple receiving devices, each subset being referred to as a burst, wherein each of said two or more data transfer units within a respective burst contains information to enable a receiving device to detect an end of the respective burst; in a first transmitting step, transmitting, by said transmitting device, a plurality of bursts to said multiple receiving devices; in the event at least one of said multiple receiving devices detects the end of a transmitted burst, generating at least one status report message and transmitting said at least one status report message to said transmitting device, wherein said at least one status report message includes at least one acknowledgement that at least one of the bursts transmitted in said first transmitting step has been received by said at least one of said multiple receiving devices; monitoring, at said transmitting device, for receipt of at least one status report message from at least one of said multiple receiving devices, wherein each burst transmitted in said first transmitting step that has not been acknowledged as being received by said at least one of said multiple receiving devices is referred to as an outstanding burst; determining a current number of outstanding bursts; comparing said current number of outstanding bursts with a predetermined maximum number of outstanding bursts; and in a second transmitting step, in the event said current number of outstanding bursts is less than said predetermined maximum number of outstanding bursts, transmitting, by said transmitting device, at least one additional burst to said multiple receiving devices.