Turbo Codes

a global licensing program for the fundamental patents associated with turbo codes

Research conducted by France Telecom teams since 1991 into channel encoding techniques led to the discovery of  Turbo codes, which are error correction codes, the performance of which greatly exceeded that of any codes known up to that time.
Recognised as a veritable technological breakthrough, Turbo codes enable the deployment of networks to be optimised in terms of radiation intensity, transmitted flow or coverage zone. Among the various resulting broadband applications were satellite broadcasting, tele-broadcasting, mobile telephony, with performance that surpassed that of codes known up to that time.

Between 1991 and 1998, nine patents co-owned by France Telecom, TDF and GET were filed to cover this technology, which is now an integral part of UMTS, HiperAccess standards, etc. and put France Telecom one step ahead in the domain of channel encoding technology. Turbo codes are also attracting considerable interest from digital TV satellite operators in the United States.

Significant economic effects are anticipated, confirmed by the licence contracts signed in 2000.  France Telecom's R&D, within the framework of the TCLP (Turbo Codes Licensing Program), has chosen Spectra Licensing as its commercial representative.
Turbo Code technology has already been adopted by a number of companies including STMicroelectronics, NTT-AT, Qualcomm.
Since their introduction, turbo codes have been proposed for low-power applications such as deep-space and satellite communications, as well as for interference limited applications such as third generation cellular and personal communication services.
 
Turbo codes have been adopted as a required element for most 3G standards, such as CDMA2000 and W-CDMA. They have further been adopted as part of the Digital Video Broadcast - Return Channel Satellite (DVB-RCS) link, enabling broadband interactive satellite systems and have been recommended by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) for use in space telemetry channel coding.