Multi-user time slots for TDMA

• US 7,248,571 B1
• Filed: 03/14/2000
• Issued: 07/24/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Ilas, Constantin, Wu, Jian Jun, Samaras, Konstantinos
• Primary Examiner(s): Rao; Seema S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mais; Mark A.
• Application Number:
  US09/980,289
• Time in Patent Office: 2,688 Days
• Field of Search: 370/252, 370/310.1, 370/310.2, 370/314, 370/320, 370/324, 370/326, 370328-329, 370/336, 370/338, 370/341, 370/347, 370/349, 370/374, 370352-356, 370/395.21, 370/410, 370/442, 370/468, 370/474, 370/498, 370/522, 370/524, 370/537, 370/469, 370/473, 370/475, 455/450, 455/452.1, 455/452.2, 455/453
• US Class Current: 370/336
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2656 for structure of frame, burst
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/1688 the demands of the users being taken into account after redundancy removal, e.g. by predictive coding, by variable sampling reducing bandwidth of signals in general H04B1/66; in PCM-systems H04B14/046; removal of redundancy in telegraph communication H03M7/30

Abstract

A method of transmitting speech frames in a TDMA network in which at least one time-slot of the TDMA frame is allocated to at least two users. The method comprises encoding user data from the at least two users into a single RLC/MAC block, allocating at least one time slot to the RLC/MAC block, and transmitting at least a portion of the encoded RLC/MAC block in the time-slot.

Claims

1. A method of transmitting speech frames in a TDMA packet switched network, the method comprising:

providing speech user data from at least two users having the same data rate requirement;

encoding said speech user data from the at least two users into a single RLC/MAC block;

allocating at least one time slot of a TDMA frame to the RLC/MAC block; and

transmitting at least a portion of the encoded RLC/MAC block in the allocated at least one time-slot such that it carries speech data from each of the at least two users.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the transmitting step comprises transmitting the encoded RLC/MAC block in a plurality of time-slots, wherein the plurality includes the at least one time slot.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting step includes a step of interleaving the RLC/MAC block such that the at least one time-slot carries at least a part of the user data from each of the two users.

4. The method of claim 1 in which the at least one time-slot carries at least a part of the user data from each of the two users.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein:

the network is an EDGE packet switched network;

the user data is speech; and

the transmitting step comprises transmitting the RLC/MAC block in four of the plurality of time-slots.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein each time slot carries a quarter of the encoded user data for each user.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the transmitting step includes a step of interleaving the RLC/MAC block such that in each TDMA frame the at least one time slot carries at least a part of the user data from only one of the two users.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein in each TDMA frame the at least one time-slot carries at least a part of the user data from one of the two users.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein an encoded speech frame from each of the two users is carried over an alternative ones of a plurality of time slots, wherein the plurality of time slots include the at least one time slot.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein

the network is an EDGE packet switched network;

the user data is speech; and

the transmitting step comprises transmitting the RLC/MAC block in four of the plurality of time-slots.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein alternate time slots carry half of the encoded user data for each user.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the user data comprises speech.

13. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the network is a wireless network; and

the speech frames are transmitted on the down-link of the network.

14. The method of claim 7, wherein:

the network is a wireless network; and

user data is transmitted on the up-link of the network.

15. The method of claim 1 in which the at least one time-slot simultaneously carries at least a part of the user data from each of the two users.