A METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR GROUP TRANSMISSION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENT

摘要

A group acknowledgment scheme permits a specified subset of a previously transmitted group of data frames to be acknowledged. In accordance with the preferred embodiment of the invention, a transmitting station (10) sends a plurality of data frames (14) to a receiving station (12) and requests a single group acknowledgment frame (16) from the receiving station (12), rather than an individual acknowledgment after each data frame. Also, the transmitting station's (10) group acknowledgment request frame specifies or otherwise indicates which of the previously transmitted group of frames should be acknowledged and awaited by the receiving station (12). The group acknowledgment may apply to the entire group of frames, some but not all of the frames or just a single frame. Further, the receiving station's (12) group acknowledgment (16) frame defines the size of a buffer allocated to receive the next group of frame transmissions that are linked to the same group acknowledgment scheme.