Abstract: Methods and systems are provided to manage communications in networks having wired and wireless portions. By determining the optimum segment size for a wireless link based on various status conditions such as bit-error rates, data throughput across the wireless link can be improved. Accordingly, data received from a wired network can be repackaged using the desired segment size before being transmitted over the wireless link. Similarly, optimum-sized segments can be received from the wireless link and the data in the received segments can be passed to the wired network.

Abstract: The present invention provides a first gateway that can receive, buffer and acknowledge a number of files from a data terminal. The gateway can then transmit one or more first segments derived from the received files to a wireless device over a first wireless link. In the event that the first wireless link is broken, any data not received by the wireless device by the first gateway can be provided to a second gateway. The second gateway, in turn, can provide the remaining data to the wireless device using one or more second segments without requiring that the second gateway contact the data terminal.