A physical automatic repeat request method implemented by a base station having a transmitter and a receiver. A physical layer, at the transmitter receives data and formats the received data into packets having a particular encoding/data modulation. The physical layer transmit the packets and retransmits packets upon failure to receive a corresponding acknowledgment for a given packet. An adaptive modulation and coding controller in the transmitter collects retransmission statistics and adjusts the particular encoding/data modulations using the collected statistics.