a data transfer technique in which lossy connections or temporarily interrupted network links neither prevent data transfer nor substantially impair the ease with which a user can transfer data . a sender is advised of receivers on a network that are available to receive data over the network . also , while data transfer from a sender to a receiver is being performed , the availability of the receiver is monitored . if , during the data transfer , the receiver becomes unavailable to receive the data , then the data transmission stops and the sender is informed that the receiver has become unavailable . the sender continues to monitor the network to determine if the receiver has regained its availability . if the receiver regains availability , the sender is able to automatically resume the data transmission , provided the availability is regained before the network connection is completely lost . the invention is useful for wireless networks as well as wired networks .