Broadcast capability of direct sequence and hybrid spread spectrum

Two forms of spread-spectrum signaling, namely direct-sequence and hybrid (direct-sequence/frequency-hopped) are shown to provide high broadcast capability, especially when used in conjunction with forward-error-control coding schemes. The broadcast capability is defined as the maximum number of simultaneous distinct messages that can be transmitted to distant receivers from a single transmitter at a given bit-error rate. The quantity provides a useful measure of the capacity of hub-to-mobile or satellite-to-earth-station links of communication networks. When bursty data or voice traffic is dominant in such networks, the above forms of spread-spectrum CDMA provide a viable alternative to FDMA or TDMA. Ways of multiplexing the direct-sequence and hybrid signals are presented that use, respectively, distinct carriers, distinct pairs of orthogonal carriers, and only two orthogonal carriers for broadcasting the different messages. Systems with chip-synchronous signals and systems with random delays between the signals are considered. The average error probability of all systems is evaluated using the characteristic-function and Gaussian-approximation techniques. Besides the uncoded systems, systems using Reed-Solomon and convolutional codes are analyzed. A comparison of the broadcast capability of the different schemes is presented