Methods and apparatus for enabling data transmission using HARQ in IEEE 802.11 systems are described. A method is disclosed, performed by a transmitting device, comprising computing a plurality of redundancy frames based on a plurality of data frames, transmitting the plurality of data frames to a receiving device, and transmitting a set of the plurality of redundancy frames to the receiving device determined by the transmitting device in response to receiving acknowledgement. One embodiment includes a method determining failed data frames of the plurality of data frames, requesting a set of the plurality of redundancy frames, and recovering the failed data frame using a decoder employing hard decision inputs. Other embodiments include an apparatus in a receiver device implementing the method of decoding the failed data frames using a decoder employing soft decision inputs.