Enhanced Cellular Coverage and Throughput Using Rateless Codes
Abstract: Rateless codes have been shown to provide robust error correction over a wide range of binary and noisy channels. Using a stochastic geometry model, this paper studies the performance of rateless codes in the cellular downlink and compares it with the performance of fixed fixed-rate rate codes. For the case of Rayleigh fading, an accurate approximation is proposed for the distribution of the packet transmission time of K -bit bit information packets using rateless codes. The two types of channel coding schemes are compared by eva evaluating luating the typical user and per-user user success probability and the rate. Based on both the analytical results and simulations, the paper shows that rateless coding provides a significant throughput gain relative to fixed fixed-rate rate coding. Moreover, the benefit is i not restricted to the typical user but applies to all users in the cellular network.