A forward error correction based multicast transport protocol for multimedia applications in satellite environments

Multimedia services in satellite environments, for example electronic newspaper distribution, do not require the clients to have a full duplex link during the whole time of the broadcast. In order to control the transmission errors on the satellite channel, a generic concept for transport layer based forward error correction (FEC) is proposed and has been implemented in the restricted reliable multicast protocol (RRMP). For efficient support of multimedia services such as real-time voice, video and data distribution, RRMP offers frame oriented data transmission, rate control, multicast connection management facilities and mechanisms for different degrees of reliable data transmission by employing FEC based error control. The FEC concept developed for RRMP is based on Reed-Solomon burst erasure (RSE) codes combined with interleaving of corresponding parts of the transport service data units (TSDUs). The proposed concept allows the reconstruction of one completely lost transport protocol data unit (TPDU) within a TSDU. Performance experiments in a simulated satellite environment are discussed to demonstrate the error correction capabilities of the proposed FEC concept and to show the effect of the redundant control information on the throughput and packet loss in satellite environments.