A METHOD FOR TRANSMITTING DATA AND AN APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING AN ERROR RATE IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

A wireless communication system (100) transmits data over a first link (132) from a first mobile station (MS) (102) to an infrastructure (124) at a first speaker link power level, and over a second link (134) from the infrastructure to a second MS (104) at a first listener link power level, during a first time period. Each of the first power levels is designed to avoid the need for retransmissions of erroneously received data. Upon expiration of the first time period, data is transmitted over the first and second links at reduced power levels and erroneously received data may be retransmitted. In other embodiments of the invention, error rate targets may be adjusted after expiration of the first time period and power levels and error rate targets may be individually adjusted on a link-by-link basis based on the RF loading of each link and/or error metrics determined for each link.