Plenary lecture 2: statistical performance analysis of communications channels in real-time

Measuring the performance of communication channels is very critical for service availability, service performance sustainability, as well as quality of service in telecommunication Networks. One of the key metrics is the Bit Error Performance (BER), which is measured using complex and expensive instruments, and bit error detecting correcting codes (EDC) embedded in the signal of the information channel. However, EDCs are although indispensable for their bit error correcting ability, require many frames of information to provide a good statistical BER value for each channel. In this lecture, we describe a statistical analytical method based on which we estimate synchronously the performance parameters of all incoming communication channels in microseconds and thus in real-time. This method provides estimation of BER, SNR, NF, Q, and min-max signal levels of current and previous values. In addition, we describe the realization of the method with a simple CMOS circuit. We also describe the benefits of the method and compare with well-established methods.