Analysis of spectrum maximization of advanced modulation and coding techniques

The rise in demand for wireless communication has led to an increase in bandwidth usage. The tendency for this bandwidth to become congested has given rise to the development of modulation and coding schemes to better maximize it. The relative spectral efficiency of these schemes in a bid to assess their frequency maximization capacity is analyzed and studied using the Bit Error Rate (BER) performance index. This performance index was derived experimentally with the use of Simulink and BERToolbox in MATLAB 7.5 and practically with BER measurements from an existing Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) link using Ericsson BER performance software. Experimental results showed that QAM and convolutional codes had a 35% and 44% performance improvement at the expense of 26% and 37% spectral efficiency respectively. The real life BER performance of the communication link between a Mobile Switching Centre and a Base Station Controller was observed to be 0.02. These results led to the conclusion that Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and Convolutional coding schemes proffer the best tradeoff between performance and bandwidth maximization.