Burst error

In telecommunications, a burst error or error burst is a contiguous sequence of symbols, received over a communication channel, such that the first and last symbols are in error and there exists no contiguous subsequence of m correctly received symbols within the error burst.^[1] The integer parameter m is referred to as the guard band of the error burst. The last symbol in a burst and the first symbol in the following burst are accordingly separated by m correct symbols or more. The parameter m should be specified when describing an error burst.

The Gilbert–Elliott model is a simple channel model introduced by Edgar Gilbert^[2] and E. O. Elliott ^[3] that is widely used for describing burst error patterns in transmission channels and enables simulations of the digital error performance of communications links. It is based on a Markov chain with two states G (for good or gap) and B (for bad or burst). In state G the probability of transmitting a bit correctly is k and in state B it is h. Usually,^[4] it is assumed that k = 1. Gilbert provided equations for deriving the other three parameters (G and B state transition probabilities and h) from a given success/failure sequence. In his example, the sequence was too short to correctly find h (a negative probability was found) and so Gilbert assumed that h = 0.5.

• Burst error-correcting code

• The Gilbert-Elliott Model for Packet Loss in Real Time Services on the Internet at the Wayback Machine (archived 2020-07-29)
• A Markov-Based Channel Model Algorithm for Wireless Networks at the Wayback Machine (archived 2020-07-27)
• The two-state model for a fading channel