of the processor 20 to detect the rss of the frame received thereon the rss with respect to other stations is estimated and stored in the memory 18 which is coupled to the processor 20 for subsequent retrieval the estimated rss with respect to other stations within the same bss is updated and later used to generate a reference table that is used to select the right transmission rate the timer 22 is used to eliminate the outdated rss estimation which is stored in the memory 18 in the embodiment the rss is updated as it tends to change due to the time varying nature of the wireless channel as well as the potential mobility of wlan stas 0022 fig3 by way of example represents a transmission reference table that is generated and updated according to the inventive algorithm explained later to select the right transmission rate according to the embodiment of the present invention each time a transmitting sta sends a frame having a particular length and receives a corresponding acknowledgement signal the transmitting sta generates or updates the threshold boundary based on the measured rss in the reference table to be used in the subsequent transmission of frames once the rss threshold boundary is established for each of the different frame intervals i e 0 100 bytes 100 1000 bytes and 1000 2400 bytes the.