A mechanism for adjusting the data rate of data to be transmitted over a data channel based on anticipated changes in the communication channel, rather than based on the current state of the communication channel. This is done by accessing real time environment context data obtained from sensor data generated by one or more sensors of a sensor device, and then predicting a future capacity of a communication channel with a subject head-mounted device based on the accessed real time environment context data. The appropriate data rate is then determined based on this predicted future channel capacity rather than the current channel capacity. The data rate of data that is initiated towards the communication channel is then adjusted based on the determined data rate in anticipation of the predicted future capacity of the communication channel.