Performance Evaluation of the DVB-RCT Standard for Interactive Services

The European Digital Video Broadcasting-Return Channel Terrestrial (DVB-RCT) standard represents a wireless In-Band return channel solution based on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access to provide interactive services in Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T) systems. In this paper, the performance of DVB-RCT standard is evaluated and compared with another possible wireless broadband technology to convey feedback traffic. Firstly, the performance of a DVB-T/RCT single cell system has been evaluated using an interactive traffic source model assuming uniform geographical user distribution with adaptive modulation and coding. The obtained results have confirmed the suitability of using DVB-RCT as a technological solution for the return channel in both rural and urban areas. Additionally, the performance of DVB-T/RCT system has been compared to IEEE 802.16-2004 using a published performance evaluation research of the latter as a benchmark. Assuming that the 802.16 published results are correct, such comparison shows a clear advantage of the DVB-T/RCT system.