Method and system for accomodating a wide range of user data rates in a multicarrier data transmission system

A method for transmitting a data quantity in a superfame of a multicarrier modulation system, the superframe including transmit frames and receive frames, said method comprising the operations of:

• (a) identifying a user rate for data transmissions;
• (b) identifying a superframe rate;
• (c) determining a data quantity to be transmitted in the superframe based on the user rate and the superframe rate;
• (d) determining a code rate for providing redundancy with the data quantity;
• (e) determining a first adjustment dummy data quantity such that when added to the data quantity and then multiplied by the code rate yields an integer number representing an enlarged data quantity to be transmitted in the superframe;
• and
• (f) determining a second adjustment dummy data quantity such that when added to the enlarged data quantity to produce a final data quantity, the final data quantity is evenly divisible by the number of transmit frames in the superframe.

A computer readable medium containing program instructions for transmitting a data quantity in a superfame of a multicarrier modulation system, the superframe including transmit frames and receive frames, said computer readable medium comprising:

• first computer readable code devices for identifying a user rate for data transmissions;
• second computer readable code devices for identifying a superframe rate;
• third computer readable code devices for determining a data quantity to be transmitted in the superframe based on the user rate and the superframe rate;
• fourth computer readable code devices for determining a code rate for providing redundancy with the data quantity;
• and
• fifth computer readable code devices for determining a first adjustment dummy data quantity such that when added to the data quantity and then multiplied by the code rate yields an integer number representing an enlarged data quantity to be transmitted in the superframe.

A transmitter for a data transmission system using multicarrier modulation, said transmitter comprising:

• a buffer that receives and stores a data quantity to be transmitted;
• a first insertion unit, said first insertion unit determines a first quantity of dummy data and inserts the first quantity of dummy data into the data quantity supplied from said buffer to produce an enlarged data quantity;
• an error correction unit, said error correction unit receives the enlarged data quantity and performs redundancy coding to produce a redundancy data quantity;
• a data symbol encoder, said data symbol encoder receives the redundancy data quantity to be transmitted and encodes bits associated with the redundancy data quantity to frequency tones of a frame;
• a multicarrier modulation unit, said multicarrier modulation unit modulates the encoded bits on the frequency tones of a frame to produce modulated signals;
• and
• a digital-to-analog converter, said digital-to-analog converter converts the modulated signals to analog signals.