System design for pan-European MSS services in S-band

This paper gives an overview of a suitable communications system capable of efficiently use the available S-band allocation for pan-European Mobile Satellite Services (15 MHz in both uplink and downlink for each of the two licensed operators) to provide different classes of services such as interactive mobile broadcast services enhancing DVB-SH offer, messaging services for handheld and vehicular terminals, realtime emergency services such as voice and file transfer, mainly addressing institutional users on-the-move such as fire brigades, civil protections, etc… The design is based on a modular, flexible and scalable system architecture enabling different channelisations and frequency allocations within each beam, allowing independent deployment of different service classes within different beams, whilst ensuring backward compatibility with DVB-SH legacy terminals.