SELECTIVE REPEAT ARQ WITH EFFICIENT UTILIZATION OF BITMAPS

摘要

In a wireline or wireless telecommunications system or data network, which employs a Selective Repeat Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) to convey data packet reception status for a sequence of data packets grouped together into a number of blocks of data packets, partial bit mapping is employed to improve efficiency, particularly with respect to bandwidth. This may be accomplished , more specifically, by including in the ARQ message that is sent from the receiver to the sender, a number of partial bitmaps, along with a corresponding number of bitmap block numbers, where a first bitmap block number identifies a particular one of the blocks of data packets and the corresponding bitmap defines the reception status of the data packets in tha t block. Each of the remaining bitmap block numbers identify an additional blo ck of data packets relative to the first block of data packets. Accordingly, th e remaining bitmap block numbers require fewer bits to identify their corresponding data packet blocks.