System and method for multi-channel FEC encoding and transmission of data

1. A method, comprising:

associating, by an apparatus comprising one or more computer devices, sequential data stream portions of a data stream with respective elements within an array of elements;

defining, by the apparatus, a plurality of element groups, each element group comprising a plurality of elements including non-sequential data stream portions of the data stream;

forward error correction (FEC) encoding, by the apparatus, each of the element groups to form respective FEC blocks;

dividing, by the apparatus, the encoded FEC blocks into a plurality of substreams;

associating, by the apparatus, each substream with a respective transmission channel; and

providing, by the apparatus, parameters for modulating each substream to generate a respective modulated signal adapted for transmission via the respective transmission channel.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the array elements comprises a two-dimensional array having M columns and N rows, where M and N are finite integers greater than one.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein sequential data stream portions are stored sequentially across each of K rows, where K is a finite integer greater than two.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein each element group comprises elements within a common column in the array of elements.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein each element group comprises K elements within the same column of elements in the array of elements, where K is a finite integer greater than one.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

calculating a circular redundancy check (CRC) for the sequential data stream portions associated with a predefined number of elements; and

associating the calculated CRC with an array element.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the predetermined number of elements equals M−1.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the modulated signals are adapted for transmission via respective portions of a first upconverted carrier signal.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein at least some of the modulated signals are adapted for transmission via respective portions of a second upconverted carrier signal.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the first and second carrier signals are conveyed using corresponding first and second point-to-point links.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the first and second point-to-point links comprise satellite transmission links, microwave transmission links or optical transmission links.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the first and second carrier signals are conveyed using corresponding first and second point-to-multipoint links.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the modulated signals are adapted for transmission via respective wireless channels within a 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi communications network.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of said respective transmission channels is associated with a common transport infrastructure.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein each respective transmission channel is associated with a corresponding spectral fragment.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium including software instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, perform a method comprising:

associating sequential data stream portions of a data stream with respective elements within an array of elements;

defining a plurality of element groups, each element group comprising a plurality of elements including non-sequential data stream portions of the data stream;

forward error correction (FEC) encoding each of the element groups to form respective FEC blocks;

dividing the encoded FEC blocks into a plurality of substreams;

associating each substream with a respective transmission channel; and

providing relevant parameters for modulating each substream to generate a respective modulated signal adapted for transmission via the respective transmission channel.

17. A computer program product, wherein at least one computer is operative to process software instructions which adapt the operation of the at least one computer to perform a method comprising:

associating sequential data stream portions of a data stream with respective elements within an array of elements;

defining a plurality of element groups, each element group comprising a plurality of elements including non-sequential data stream portions of the data stream;

forward error correction (FEC) encoding each of the element groups to form respective FEC blocks;

dividing the encoded FEC blocks into a plurality of substreams;

associating each substream with a respective transmission channel; and

providing relevant parameters for modulating each substream to generate a respective modulated signal adapted for transmission via the respective transmission channel.

18. An apparatus, comprising:

an encoder, configured to receive a data stream, to associate sequential data stream portions of the data stream with respective elements within an array of elements, to define a plurality of element groups, each element group comprising a plurality of elements including non-sequential data stream portions, and to forward error correction (FEC) encode each of the element groups to form respective FEC blocks; and

a slicer, configured to divide the sequence of FEC blocks into a plurality of substreams, and to associate each substream with a respective transmission channel,

wherein the apparatus is further configured to provide relevant parameters for modulating each substream to generate a respective modulated signal adapted for transmission via the respective transmission channel.

19. A method, comprising:

demodulating, by an apparatus comprising one or more computing devices, each of modulated substreams of a data stream, each substream being received on a respective transmission channel by the apparatus;

selectively delaying, by the apparatus, one or more substreams of the received substreams to temporarily align the received substreams;

combining, by the apparatus, the demodulated and temporarily aligned substreams to recover encoded forward error correction (FEC) blocks including non-sequential data stream portions of an initial data stream; and

extracting, by the apparatus, the sequential data stream portions from the FEC blocks.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein extracting the sequential data stream portions from the FEC blocks includes storing the FEC blocks in a two-dimensional array having M columns and N rows such that sequential data stream portions are stored sequentially across each of K rows, where M and N are finite integers greater than one, and K is a finite integer greater than two.

21. The method of claim 20 , further comprising performing a circular redundancy check (CRC) for each of the K rows of sequential data stream portions to identify any errors, and using the FEC encoding to correct identified errors.

22. An apparatus, comprising;

at least one processor; and

at least one memory for storing program logic, the program logic executed by the at least one processor, the program logic comprising:

logic for demodulating each of modulated substreams of a data stream, each substream being received on a respective transmission channel by the apparatus;

logic for selectively delaying one or more substreams of the received substreams to temporarily align the received substreams;

logic for combining the demodulated and temporarily aligned substreams to recover encoded forward error correction (FEC) blocks including non-sequential data stream portions of an initial data stream; and

logic for extracting the sequential data stream portions from the FEC blocks.