Adaptive acknowledgment delay

Abstract

Adaptive acknowledgement delay entails adaptively adjusting an acknowledgement delay period responsive to channel quality. A destination device is enabled to set the acknowledgment delay period between two successive acknowledgments that acknowledge blocks received from a source device over a wireless channel. In a described implementation, the acknowledgment delay period is decreased if the wireless channel quality is poor. Otherwise, the acknowledgment delay period is increased as bounded by a maximum acknowledgment delay period setting and a remaining number of unreceived blocks of a current suprablock. The quality of the wireless channel may be reflected by, for example, blocks that are received erroneously. The duration of the acknowledgment delay may be set in terms of number of blocks received at the destination device.