Multi-carrier technologies have emerged as important instruments in telecommunications. OFDM is in the forefront, with its adoption by the IEEE 802.11 standards committee and the European HYPERLAN standards group. Following OFDM, MC-CDMA is also demonstrating considerable promise when compared to competing technologies. According to the authors, these technologies are just the beginning in the coming multi-carrier revolution. In this text, the authors explain how a common multi-carrier platform is being designed for DS-CDMA, TDMA, OFDM and MC-CDMA systems. Findings are presented which show how this multi-carrier platform enhances network capacity and probability of error performance. Specific results include: innovation in multi-carrier technologies that are enabling them to become an integral part of TDMA and DS-CDMA systems; and the design of multi-carrier systems to overcome PAPR problems (in, for example, OFDM).
