a system and method of increasing data throughput in a wireless communications network between a base station and one or more mobile stations includes establishing a service flow and initially enabling a hybrid automated repeat request protocol ; determining , at a particular time , the measure of quality of the communications channel ; comparing the determined measure of quality with a predetermined channel quality threshold ; and selectively disabling the harq protocol based upon a first comparison result while continuing the sf between the bs and ms . in other aspects , after selectively disabling the harq protocol , the method further includes determining that the time - varying measure of quality of the communications channel has deteriorated below the predetermined channel quality threshold ; and selectively re - enabling the harq protocol in the established sf .