A communication system and a method for transferring data are provided. The method is implemented in a communication system having first and second network devices. The first network device configured to transmit a coded version of a frame and a first state variable to the second network device in a media access control (MAC) layer. The second network device is configured to receive the coded version of the frame and the first state variable and transmit a second state variable to the first network device. The first network device and the second network device use a state machine based on the first and second state variables and implement a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) protocol.