Error Probabilities for Bounded Distance Decoding

Decoding errors can be seen from the point of view of the receiver or the transmitter. This naturally leads to different functions for the decoding error probability. We study their behaviour and the relation between these two functions. Though both functions are equally good when used to compare two codes with respect to decoding errors only one of them reflects in general the properties such a function should have. This is not the function one usually considers in the literature when studying decoding errors. Both functions coincide only if the underlying code is perfect. The investigations in this paper can be seen as a continuation of earlier work of MacWilliams (see chap. 16.1 in 2]). J. Lafuente and G. Ochoa are supported by MTM2004-08219-C02-01.