Reed-Solomon Forward Error Correction Schemes

Abstract

This document describes a Fully-Specified Forward Error Correction (FEC) Scheme for the Reed-Solomon FEC codes over GF(2^^m), where m is in {2..16}, and its application to the reliable delivery of data objects on the packet erasure channel (i.e., a communication path where packets are either received without any corruption or discarded during transmission). This document also describes a Fully-Specified FEC Scheme for the special case of Reed-Solomon codes over GF(2^^8) when there is no encoding symbol group. Finally, in the context of the Under-Specified Small Block Systematic FEC Scheme (FEC Encoding ID 129), this document assigns an FEC Instance ID to the special case of Reed-Solomon codes over GF(2^^8).

Reed-Solomon codes belong to the class of Maximum Distance Separable (MDS) codes, i.e., they enable a receiver to recover the k source symbols from any set of k received symbols. The schemes described here are compatible with the implementation from Luigi Rizzo. [STANDARDS-TRACK]

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Proposed Standard” means

An entry-level standards-track specification: stable, peer-reviewed and a solid basis for implementation, though it may still evolve before becoming an Internet Standard.