Rate management in adaptive data rate wireless communication systems in which communicating stations move with respect to one another implements algorithms for calculation of the repetition rate. A rate management module is used for selecting a proper value of repetition rate to be communicated back to sending station and for a selecting proper value of repetition rate to encode the data at the sending station. The repetition rate calculation procedure enables each station to dynamically calculate the optimum rate with which each station should be receiving information from another station. The repetition rate calculation procedures take into consideration past and present measurements of the link quality, age of the link quality measurements, speed of change in the link quality, packet types, packet lengths, received signal strength, and pattern and correlation in the link quality measurements. The rate management module utilizes one or more tables which are accessible from either hardware or software.