Radio link control protocol for WCDMA based mobile satellite communication systems

In satellite communication systems, channel capacity is limited because of the limited number of satellites. In particular, uplink channel capacity is relatively low due to low-power handheld terminals, collision of many terminals, and fading by long propagation time. Also long propagation delay limits the number of data-retransmissions for real time traffic, and small capacity limits the number of data-retransmissions for non real time traffic. For these reasons, comparative studies are required in order to identify the most appropriate satellite-based RLC (radio link control) protocol for global mobile multimedia communication via LEO satellite networks. In this paper we consider two kinds of traffic, real time traffic and non real time traffic. For real time traffic, a class of adaptive error-control schemes using both the code rate of FEC and frame length based on the estimated channel state/condition are used as an RLC protocol with transparent mode or unacknowledged mode. Also, for non real time traffic, a hybrid ARQ type II/III protocol is used as an RLC protocol with acknowledged mode.