METHOD, APPARATUS AND COMPUTER PROGRAM TO SIGNAL ADDITIONAL MODULATION SCHEME WITHOUT ADDITIONAL SIGNALLING OVERHEAD

摘要

A method and apparatus are provided for jointly encoding bits containing information about an existing modulation technique or an existing antenna transmission technique in order to extend signaling to include new information about an additional modulation technique or the use of an additional antenna transmission technique without having to increase the number of bits transmitted in the signaling; and conveying the new information in unused combinations of the encoded bits. The signaling may take the form of a high speed shared control channel (HS-SCCH) that forms part of a high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA). In some embodiments, the existing modulation technique may include quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK), 16 quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM), or some combination thereof, and the additional modulation technique may include 64 quadrature amplitude modulation (64QAM).