Patent attributes
A device and method for controlling data unit communications between a sender and a receiver, and flexibly responding to a potential data loss event. Data to be sent are divided into data units and transmitted from the sender to the receiver. If the receiver fails to receive a data unit, the sender retransmits the data unit using a flow control procedure using adaptive parameters. The sender inserts a mark in each transmitted data unit indicating whether each data unit is an original transmission or a retransmission. For each data unit correctly received, the receiver inserts the corresponding mark in an acknowledgment data unit and sends the acknowledgment to the sender. The sender determines whether the correctly received data unit was an original transmission or a retransmission based on the mark or by comparing the round-trip time for the acknowledged data unit with a predetermined round-trip time for an original transmission.
