Wired and wireless communication networks can be subject to burst interference resulting in loss of throughput and data corruption. In a communication system comprising a transmitting network device and a receiving network device, the transmitting network device can be configured to implement balanced bit loading for retransmitting packets of a failed packet transmission. On receiving a request for retransmission from the receiving network device, the transmitting network device can identify and eliminate sub-carriers that are associated with a bit load that is less than a predefined bit load threshold. The transmitting network device can attempt to reallocate bit loads of the eliminated sub-carriers to remaining sub-carriers across two or more constituent symbols per original symbol.