| 摘要 |
A method for providing packet error indication (62) in a multi-hop communications system (10) in which packets (17) of data are transmitted from a transmission site (14) to a reception site (32) via a plurality of successive physical links (22a, 26a, 28a, 30a, 22b, 26b, 28b, 30b, 22c, 26c, 28c, 30c). At the transmission site, a pre-defined bit (62) in a packet (16) to be transmitted is set to a first value indicating that no errors are present in the packet. Then, at each successive physical link, after transmission of the packet over that link, the following steps are performed: detecting (82) whether any uncorrectable errors occurred in the packet during transmission over that link; if an uncorrectable error is detected, setting (90) the pre-defined bit in the packet to a second value indicative of an uncorrectable error in the data of the packet; and relaying (88) the packet to the next successive physical link for transmission over that next link. A decoder (32) at the reception site may, upon receiving a given packet, examine the value of the pre-defined bit to determine the integrity of the data contained in that packet.
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