The invention provides a method and apparatus for decoupling loss recovery from congestion and window control. The system provides improved performance in high loss environments such as wireless links. The system avoids unnecessary window adjustment in response to packet losses. Transmission rates can be maintained without compromising loss recovery. The invention uses just-in-time Packet Expiration, Transmission Order Queue, a Forward Retransmission Algorithm and Window Control to provide improved performance. The invention maintains a queue of packets in flight called the Transmission Order Queue (TOQ). When an acknowledgement is received for a packet in the in-flight queue, that packet is removed from the queue. If a packet is still in the queue for a certain threshold time, the invention assumes that it is lost. At that point, the packet is removed from the in-flight queue and the packet is retransmitted.