Abstract: A method and apparatus for transmitting data in a packet radio communication system having data sources, destinations and intermediate repeaters. According to a packet protocol, a repeat count in the protocol is decremented each time a packet is retransmitted, until the repeat count reaches zero, at which time the packet is discarded. According to another packet protocol, a sequence index is used to prevent duplicate packets from being received by requiring that the sequence number fall within a sequence number window at each device, which is incremented each time a packet is received. The sequence number is also used to cause the retransmission of packets which are lost, at which time the sequence number windows in the devices which are affected are reset to allow transmission of the lost packet.