A wireless communication system including a receiver and a transmitter. The receiver receives a frame of data, and sends an acknowledgement. The acknowledgement includes a positive acknowledgement (ACK) if the data is successfully decoded or a negative acknowledgement (NAK) if the data is unsuccessfully decoded. The acknowledgement is sent according to timing of an acknowledge mask. The transmitter is wirelessly coupled to the receiver, and receives the acknowledgement according to the acknowledge mask, and sends a response to the receiver according to the acknowledgement. The response includes, if an ACK is received before transmission completes of the frame, the transmitter terminates transmission of the frame; if a NAK is received before transmission completes of the frame, the transmitter continues to send the frame; and if an ACK is not received before a predefined frame early scheduling point, the transmitter retransmits the frame after transmission completes of the frame.