A method for driving a retransmission timer in a mobile telecommunications system using a radio link protocol. A mobile telecommunications system receives a frame transmitted from a transmitter and, if the received frame is determined to be erroneous, requests the transmitter to retransmit the frame and drives a retransmission timer. In this case, there is a probability that the retransmission timer will be held. For this reason, the method for driving the retransmission timer minimizes that probability. Accordingly, the retransmission timer expires earlier by a period of time for which it is not held, thereby allowing subsequent operations in the mobile telecommunications system to be performed quickly and at an improved data rate.