System and method to increase link adaptation performance with multi-level feedback

Abstract

A method and apparatus for explicit adaptive modulation and coding scheme selection, the method receiving, at a mobile device, a transport block targeted to the mobile device, and if a quality of the received transport block exceeds a threshold, providing an acknowledgment or negative acknowledgment to a network element; and if the quality of the received transport block is below the threshold, suppressing the acknowledgment or negative acknowledgement.

1 . A method of explicit adaptive modulation and coding scheme selection comprising:
 receiving, at a mobile device, a transport block targeted for the mobile device;   if a quality of the received transport block exceeds a threshold, providing an acknowledgment or negative acknowledgment to a network element; and   if the quality of the received transport block is below the threshold, suppressing the acknowledgment or negative acknowledgement.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the transport block is received over a high speed downlink packet access channel. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement are hybrid automatic repeat request responses. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the network element is an element within a long term evolution network. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the quality is determined to be below the threshold based on a Yamamato bit that provides a binary indication of quality of the transport block. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein, due to the suppressing, the network element chooses a new modulation and coding scheme to send data from the transport block to the mobile device. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the threshold is chosen based on a probability of successfully decoding a subsequent transport block utilizing an existing modulation and coding scheme. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the threshold is set higher if the network element uses chase combining rather than incremental redundancy. 
     
     
         9 . A mobile device comprising:
 a processor;   a communications subsystem; and   memory,   wherein the processor, communications subsystem and memory cooperate to:
 receive a transport block targeted for the mobile device; 
 if a quality of the received transport block exceeds a threshold, providing an acknowledgment or negative acknowledgment to a network element; and 
 if the quality of the received transport block is below the threshold, suppressing the acknowledgment or negative acknowledgement. 
   
     
     
         10 . The mobile device of  claim 9 , wherein the transport block is received over a high speed downlink packet access channel. 
     
     
         11 . The mobile device of  claim 10 , wherein the acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement are hybrid automatic repeat request responses. 
     
     
         12 . The mobile device of  claim 9 , wherein the mobile device operates in a long term evolution network. 
     
     
         13 . The mobile device of  claim 9 , wherein the quality is determined to be below the based on a Yamamato bit that provides a binary indication of quality of the transport block. 
     
     
         14 . The mobile device of  claim 9 , wherein, due to the suppressing, the network element chooses a new modulation and coding scheme to send data from the message to the mobile device. 
     
     
         15 . The mobile device of  claim 9 , wherein the threshold is chosen based on a probability of successfully decoding a subsequent message utilizing an existing modulation and coding scheme. 
     
     
         16 . The mobile device of  claim 9 , wherein the threshold is set higher if the network element uses chase combining rather than incremental redundancy.