Unified time-slicing and intra-/inter-burst FEC extension headers for GSE over DVB

DVB standards are affected by two major developments over the last years: the convergence to IP networks, and the increasing proliferation of mobile devices. This has led to the adoption of more efficient IP encapsulation protocols such as the Generic Stream Encapsulation (GSE) on one hand, and the specification of solutions targeted for mobile channels on the other hand. One such set of solutions is the introduction of time-slicing and forward error correction (FEC) mechanisms at the link layer, which have been defined in various ways in the DVB-H, -SH, and DVB-RCS standards. However, all these solutions use a slightly different encoding, lowering interoperability, and none take the underlying base-band frame structure of second-generation DVB carriers into account. This implies a loss in reception efficiency as well as a significant overhead in bandwidth requirements. This paper suggests new, unified and efficient GSE-based mechanisms for time-slicing and intra- as well as inter-burst FEC at the link layer that are applicable across the range of second-generation DVB standards, including DVB-SH and the S2 forward link of DVB-RCS systems.