ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the operational and technical opportunities and challenges posed by distributed transmission and by a modulation method (COFDM) claimed to be particularly useful for such operations. Distributed transmission has potential applications in broadcast television, digital audio broadcasting, wireless cable, 28 GHz, and similar "broadcast" systems. In many ways, distributed transmission can be likened to a cellular telephone system. The major difference between cellular telephone systems and distributed transmission is that cellular phone systems divide the spectrum into three channel groups with individual cells using only one of the groups. For non-broadcast applications that can provide two-way communications capability such as wireless cable and 28 GHz systems, the use of a distributed transmission approach can bring additional benefits. One of the largest disadvantages of distributed transmission is the need to deliver signal to each of the transmitters. The chapter examines the benefits to distributed transmission operations of the COFDM modulation scheme and toy to understand hullabaloo surrounding it.
