US Patent 7948991 Broadcast and multicast transmissions with acknowledgement scheduling

In one embodiment, a method includes scheduling acknowledgements from a plurality of receivers in a wireless network, transmitting an acknowledgement schedule to the receivers, broadcasting or multicasting data to the receivers, processing acknowledgements received from receivers, and retransmitting at least a portion of the data to one or more of the receivers if an acknowledgement is not received from the one or more receivers. An apparatus for broadcasting or multicasting data in a wireless network is also disclosed.