Broadcom® M-Stream™ technology will provide quality and capacity improvements for 2G and 3G cellular networks.
When the providers reach the upper network capacity, they convert their cellular service to lower bit-rate operations. This leads to more users per base-station, but the voice quality degradation is inevitable. Low bit-rate class of service results in a higher number of dropped calls, which negatively affects customer satisfaction. Broadcom’s cellular baseband processors, enabled with M-Stream technology can allow networks to support nearly twice as many calls as before without any changes to the current network infrastructure.
All of the components in the Broadcom family of new baseband processors are enabled with M-Stream technology, providing benefits from entry 2G GPRS handsets to leading-edge 3G WCDMA/EDGE feature phones.
Cell phone users who experience weak signal reception are faced with garbled or choppy voice connections, making it difficult to carry on a conversation. M-Stream technology dynamically employs advanced error correction algorithms to the incoming voice or data streams and reconstructs lost information to restore reception quality. M-Stream technology is based on Broadcom’s proprietary signal enhancement algorithms developed for mobile phones, enabling handsets to operate on standard GSM or WCDMA networks with significant improvements in demodulated speech quality in poor signal conditions and noticeable improvements in voice clarity.
M-Stream technology provides a 2 to 3 dB typical signal/noise improvement over a very wide range of channel conditions, including weak signals, fading and in areas where radio interference is present. Using the industry standard PESQ (perceptive evaluation of speech quality) method of scoring voice quality, M-Stream improves voice intelligibility in bad channel conditions by 0.5 to 1 unit on the PESQ, where PESQ’s quality scale ranges from -1 to 4.5 points. These enhancements provide a direct benefit to consumers by improving call quality while allowing carriers to increase the number of callers who can be supported on existing networks.