METHOD AND EQUIPMENT FOR LOSSLESS PACKET DELIVERY TO A MOBILE TERMINAL DURING HANDOVER

A “loose ACK” method by which a radio access network of a cellular network monitors wireless transmission of packets according to a layered protocol including a radio layer (near the physical layer) and an upper layer, the method including: a step (23) of slow release—in what is called normal buffer management—in which the upper layer removes from a buffer maintained by the upper layer the oldest packet in the buffer when the buffer is full and a new packet arrives, and does so independently of whether the packet being removed has been acknowledged by the radio layer of the terminal; and a step (24) of local acknowledgement in which the radio layer sends an acknowledgement to the upper layer on the occurrence of a predetermined event. The local acknowledgement can trigger either special mode buffer management or release of the buffer to a target (entity or layer).