Adaptive use of error-correcting codes for real-time communication in wireless networks

The growing demand for mobility has increased the need to develop more efficient, reliable and cost effective services for data transmission over the air interface. The air interface, as compared to the wired domain, is characterized by a high bit-error-rate, limited bandwidth, and intermittent connectivity. In addition, power in the hand-held devices and laptops is limited by the battery technology. We present AFEC, an adaptive forward error-correction scheme, which makes effective use of the air interface by minimizing the number of data bits transmitted to convey message packets in a real-time stream over an air interface. Through simulations, we show that AFEC outperforms the traditional single forward error-correction scheme.