Bringing multimedia services to digital-divide end-users with smart 2-way satellite technologies: The UNIC EC FP6 project

Satellite-based telecom systems provide the best and quickest solution to reducing the digital divide in less-favored areas owing to their wide geographical coverage and the speed and ease of deployment of terminal equipment. However, satellite system must be efficient and cost effective, and capable of full inter-working with state-of-the-art terrestrial broadband networks. This paper presents a novel two-way broadband satellite architecture developed in the framework of the UNIC (UNIversal satellite home Connection) project, sponsored within the 6th EU Research Programme Framework. The UNIC system architecture provides TV-Centric triple play services to actual end-users in the home employing DVB-S2 and DVB-RCS technologies in the forward and the return link, respectively, together with a newly low-cost defined architecture for the distribution of connectivity to end-users, including an ad-hoc interactive Set-Top-Box.