Disabling hybrid automatic repeat request (harq) acknowledgments for packets for which acknowledgements are supported at network or higher layer

A non-transitory computer readable medium including computer executable instructions, which when executed by a processor of a first wireless communications device, control the first wireless communications device to perform the steps of:

• using a latency threshold to identify at a first wireless communications device including a transmitter, traffic flows that support an end to end retransmission method in the event of a communications failure of data being communicated to which HARQ suppression should be applied, using the latency threshold including identifying a first traffic flow which has a first latency requirement which is below said latency threshold as a traffic flow to which HARQ suppression should be applied, said first traffic flow being a traffic flow extending between the first wireless communications device and a third wireless communications device and which passes through a second wireless communications device;
• and
• applying Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) suppression to the first traffic flow, without applying HARQ suppression to a second traffic flow, said second traffic flow having a different latency requirement than said first flow, said different latency requirement allowing for more latency than is permitted by said first latency requirement.

The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 20, further including computer executable instructions, which when executed by the processor of a first wireless communications device control the first wireless device to transmit an explicit indication to the second wireless communications device to skip Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) feedback for data, corresponding to the first traffic flow as part of applying HARQ suppression to the first traffic flow.