The effect of redundant coding on throughput in a mobile data terminal system

Many papers have been written concerning the application of error-correcting codes to mobile data systems. However, various workers in the field continue to question the relative performance of such a scheme, prefering instead a much simpler code structure (limited error-detecting only), depending on retransmission to supply the necessary correction. This paper presents the results of an investigation designed to provide insight into the relative performance of these two schemes, and the conditions affecting that relative performance. Primary focus is on a complete system, and the effects examined include multi-path fading, terrain variations, mobile population distribution, and transmitter power vs. range. The final conclusions are a set of concise trade-off rules that very closely show the impact of the coding decision on the factors that control system cost and performance, and the limits within which these conclusions are valid.