US 6,320,843 B1 · Wireless communications systems with standard and robust services and methods of operation thereof

Abstract

In a wireless communications system, information is communicated over one of a first communications channel having a first redundancy level or a second communications channel having a second redundancy level based on a determination of communications quality for at least one of the channels. In embodiments of the present invention, communications occur over a first channel, e.g., a “standard” channel until a measure of communications quality for that channel, such as bit error rate or frame error rate, meets a predetermined criterion. When the communications quality meets the predetermined criterion, communications shifts to a “robust” high-penetration channel that utilizes substantially the same amount of spectral resource as the first channel but provides significantly increased redundancy. In other embodiments, a terminal, e.g., a cellular radiotelephone or other radio terminal, registers with a wireless communications system via one of a standard broadcast control channel or a high-penetration broadcast control channel, and switches therebetween based upon a determination of communications quality for the standard broadcast control channel. For example, the terminal may switch to the high-penetration broadcast control channel upon failure to acquire the standard broadcast control channel in a disadvantaged reception area.

Claims53

Dependent claims

In a wireless communications system, a method of communicating comprising the steps of:

determining a measure of quality of communications for at least one of a first communications channel having a first redundancy level associated therewith and a second communications channel having a second redundancy level associated therewith, the second redundancy level different than the first redundancy level, wherein the first and second communications channels share a common modulator, wherein the modulator uses a first modulation constellation on the first communications channel, and wherein the second communications channel comprises an error correction coding that constrains the modulator to use a second modulation constellation that is a reduced subset of the first modulation constellation;
and
communicating over one of the first communications channel or the second communications channel selected based on the determined measure of communications quality.

A method of communicating in a wireless communications system, the method comprising the steps of:

determining a measure of quality of communications for a first communications channel that has a first redundancy level and that uses a modulation constellation;
and
communicating over a second communications channel if the determined measure of quality of communications meets a predetermined criterion, wherein the second communications channel employs an error correction encoding that provides a second redundancy level greater than the first redundancy level and that constrains modulation on the second communications channel to a subset of the modulation constellation used by the first communications channel.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Wireless communications systems with standard and robust services and methods of operation thereof

Life of this patent

Wireless communications systems with standard and robust services and methods of operation thereof

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims53