System and method for monitoring dropped packets

A method for communications device operations, the method comprising:

• determining a first sequence number of a received packet in a sequence of packets, wherein the first sequence number is associated with a first protocol layer;
• determining, with the communications device, if there is a discontinuity in the first sequence number;
• and
• if there is a discontinuity in the first sequence number,
• determining a second sequence number of the received packet, wherein the second sequence number is associated with a second protocol layer, and wherein the second protocol layer is lower in a protocol layer structure than the first protocol layer,
• determining if there is a corresponding discontinuity in the second sequence number,
• if there is the corresponding discontinuity in the second sequence number, determining that a packet in the sequence of packets was lost in transmission and processing the packet in accordance with determining that the packet in the sequence of packets was lost in transmission, and
• if there is not the corresponding discontinuity in the second sequence number, determining that the packet in the sequence of packets was dropped by a transmitting station and processing the packet in accordance with determining that the packet in the sequence of packets was dropped by the transmitting station.

A communications device comprising:

• a receiver configured to receive a sequence of packets from a transmitting station, wherein each packet in the sequence of packets comprises a protocol layer packet for each protocol layer of multi-layered network;
• a processing unit coupled to the receiver, the processing unit configured to determine if a packet in the sequence of packets has been dropped by the transmitting station, wherein the processing unit determines that the packet has been dropped in accordance with at least two sets of sequence numbers associated with different protocol layers of packets in the sequence of packets, and to count a number of dropped packets, wherein the at least two sets of sequence number comprise a first set of sequence numbers and a second set of sequence numbers;
• and
• a discontinuity determining unit configured to determine if there is a first discontinuity in the first set of sequence numbers, wherein the first set of sequence numbers is associated with first protocol layer packets of the sequence of packets and to determine if there is a corresponding first discontinuity in the second set of sequence numbers, wherein the second set of sequence numbers is associated with second protocol layer packets of the sequence of packets, wherein the first protocol layer packets belong to a higher protocol layer than the second protocol layer packets, and wherein a corresponding first discontinuity comprises a discontinuity in the second set of sequence numbers that occurs at a same time mark as the first discontinuity in the first set of sequence numbers.