Personal and thin-route communications via K-band satellite transponders

The concept of a fully meshed network of a briefcase-sized terminals is presented for personal and thin-route communications over Ku-band satellite transponders. In this concept, undesirable double-hop delays are avoided for voice communications. The bandwidth and power resources of the transponder are efficiently shared by users in a simple demand-assigned manner via code-division multiple access (CDMA). Voice, data, and facsimile are statistically multiplexed at each terminal. In order to minimize terminal costs, frequency-precorrected and level-preadjusted continuous-wave tones are sent from the central network control station in each beam so that the terminals in each downlink beam can use these pilots as references for antenna acquisition and tracking, as reliable frequency sources, and as indicators of signal fade for uplink power control (ULPC). The potential CDMA near-far problem due to uplink fades is mitigated by using ULPC. Quasi-burst mode transmission is used to minimize the potential of clock and pseudorandom number code synchronization