A receiver monitoring the transmissions of a packet processing device such as a wireless access point analyzes the monitored transmissions to estimate the probability of packet loss due to buffer overflow in the processing device. The loss probability can be estimated for individual packets to follow rapid changes in communication conditions. An indication of the estimated loss probability can be used to adapt the forward error correction (FEC) parameters that are used to generate the packets, thereby improving the reliability of data delivery to a receiver while optimizing the use of communication channel bandwidth.