Packet communication with header compression

摘要

The invention relates to a system for communicating data packets comprising compressed header information. An apparatus operates in a first mode which comprises the step of receiving data packets (301). Data packet sequence information is extracted (303) from the data packets and a disruption indication is determined (305) in response to the packet sequence information. If the disruption indicates that no disruption has occurred, the apparatus remains in the first mode and decompresses (309) the compressed headers and generates (311) decompressed data packets. If the disruption indicates that a disruption has occurred, the apparatus enters a second mode wherein a header compression resynchronisation process is initialised (313), while at the same time compressed headers are decompressed (315) and decompressed data packets are generated (317) without any validity check being performed. The second mode is exited (321) when the header compression resynchronisation process is terminated successfully. The invention allows for improved error recovery and is particularly suited for data packets using compressed IP/UDP/RTP headers.