Estimation of residual bit-error rate from the standard block-error rate data for practical extremely long SDH microwave links

In this paper, impact of migrating the residual error performance defining parameter from the residual-bit-error-ratio (RBER) to the background-block-error-ratio (BBER), as coming out from the evolution of ITU-T standards is studied. The main goal of this paper is to point out the consequences of the introduction of the block concept with residual error performance through investigating the consistency between the native RBER values and the BBER-based estimations of effective RBER values for extremely long radio-relay links. The results of the RBER estimation, derived from the measured BBER on a nonstandard extremely long microwave link, to investigate the stringency of the block-error and bit-error based objectives is analyzed. The RBER objective found to be attributed to the space diversity, as the ultimate noteworthy protection measure, as well as convenient to the path profile.