On the performance of the space time coded WCDMA downlink system over multi-path fading channel

This paper presents performance results of space-time block coding (STBC) in the downlink WCDMA with linear receivers at the terminal. We analyze the bit-error probability performance for this system in frequency selective fading channels. We also present some numerical results. The results show that much better performance is achieved when linear channel equalization at the chip level is employed at the terminal's receiver instead of the conventional Rake receiver. For example, for voice conversations at a BER of 10^-3, the capacity can be doubled by using channel chip equalizer.