High quality wideband audio over DECT

The new version of the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication (DECT) standard contemplates the possibility of transmitting 64 kbps over the time division multiple access structure of the previous DECT standard. It is important to realise that transmission takes place by means of the single slots used today by most existing DECT systems for voice communication. This fact enable application designers to virtually employ 64 kbps transmissions where only 52 kbps were possible before. The first system capable of using this possibility has been built in the framework of the TWIST project, funded by the EU. The project has demonstrated the feasibility of using such systems in practice and over ordinary RF channels. We show how this transmission systems can be used in order to transmit high quality wideband audio. To do this two problems are solved. First the design of a digital receiver capable of attaining a low bit error rate over extended DECT systems is described. Second we show how the available bit rate can be used to reliably transmit MPEG-1 Layer III data, by means of BCH error correcting codes. Our results show that error-free transmission of digital audio is possible over DECT systems down to the -86 dBm limit specified in the standard.