Punctured Convolutional Codes for Supporting PCS Access to ATM Networks

A personal communications services (PCS) system that provides access to, and interworks with, the ATM network will have the capability to support future multimedia services. PCS access to fixed ATM networks is one of the wireless access scenarios being considered by the ATM Forum for standardization. This paper provides a system level description of a PCS-to-ATM interworking scenario. It proposes a variable-rate forward error correction (FEC) coding scheme for the wireless physical (PHY) layer that is based on rate-compatible punctured convolutional (RCPC) coding. Through numerical analysis, using a two-ray Rayleigh fading channel model, it is shown that RCPC coding at the wireless PHY layer can be effective in providing reliable PCS access to the ATM infrastructure network. RCPC coding at the wireless PHY can be augmented with ARQ at the data link control layer (DLC) to form a hybrid ARQ/FEC protocol.