We study the impact of the ARQ mechanism in W-CDMA, a 3rd generation cellular wireless network technology, and analyze the trade-off between delay-jitter suppression and link utilization. We show how to find the TCP and link ARQ parameters that yield optimum overall performance; simulations and emulation confirm their effectiveness. Many cellular links have small physical frame sizes and relatively high frame loss rates. Relying entirely on just TCP over those network results in a performance degradation. Using TCP with link-layer error recovery can increase end-to-end performance. Therefore link-layer and end-to-end recovery can co-exist; this can also lead to inefficient interaction between the ARQ protocols in the two layers. This paper characterizes TCP behavior over the W-CDMA wireless link and introduces optimal parameters using simulator and emulator of the link ARQ mechanisms.