Application Layer Forward Error Correction For Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting

Application Layer Forward Error Correction (AL-FEC) is an innovative way to provide reliability in mobile broadcast systems. Conventional data such as multimedia files or multimedia streams are extended-with repair information that can be used to recover lost data at the receiver. AL-FEC is integrated into content delivery protocols (CDPs) to support reliable delivery. Several standardization committees such as 3GPP and DVB have recognized the importance of AL-FEC and have standardized Raptor codes as the most powerful AL-FEC codes to be used for such applications. The major characteristics of Raptor codes are channel efficiency, low complexity, and flexibility. An important consideration when using AL-FEC is system integration. With the right system design including AL-FEC, the efficiency or quality of delivery services can be significantly enhanced. This work shows these benefits in selected use cases, specifically focusing on 3G-based Multimedia broadcasting within the MBMS standard.