Adaptive error control coding for a Mobile Broadband System

The Mobile Broadband System (MBS) under research in Europe aims at offering to mobile users an ATM-based radio access to the future integrated broadband communications network. It is well known that a high-quality transmission channel (operating at MM-wave frequencies) can be assumed within the fixed broadband network; however, this is far from being expected in the radio links of the future mobile system. This paper is concerned with the design of an error control coding scheme for a first stage of MBS implementation. The proposed scheme is a very flexible, hybrid one, which is based on the concatenation of a convolutional inner code, and a Reed-Solomon outer code, and combines ARQ and FEC features in an adaptive manner, under an implicit evaluation of the channel state. It is powerful enough to cope with poor channel conditions and is compatible with both ATM characteristics and those of a wide range of services (including required BER below 10/sup -6/ with a delay of a few ms). A set of simulation results illustrates the advantages of the proposed error control coding scheme.