The present invention is a method for improving data transfer performance over
communications networks connecting data networks and users using adaptive communications
formatting. Adaptive communications formatting includes encoding (or compressing)
the data and applying error control schemes to reduce the amount of data being
transmitted and to correct and/or conceal errors occurring during data transmission.
In one embodiment, the present invention uses a set of transcoding techniques to
encode (or compress) the data and a set of error control schemes to correct and/or
conceal errors occurring during data transmission. The particular sets of transcoding
techniques and error control schemes selected to format the data are adaptive to
factors, such as the nature of the communications network connecting a user to
an access server on the data network, the preferences of the user, and the data
type of the data being transmitted to the user (or the access server).
