A communication system includes a plurality of nodes forming a wireless mesh network. A plurality of wireless communication links connect the nodes together. Each node is formed as a communications device having a physical layer and a media access control (MAC) layer in accordance with the Open System Interconnect (OSI) model and operative for transmitting and receiving communications packets to and from other nodes via the wireless communication links in an Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) mode. The physical layer monitors channel parameters of the wireless communications link when in an ARQ mode and, based on the channel parameters, communicates to the MAC layer over-the-air (OTA) parameters used for transmitting packets.