An integrated voice and data multiple-access scheme for a land-mobile satellite system

A Land-Mobile Satellite System (LMSS) is a satellite-based communications network which provides voice and data communications to mobile users in a vast geographical area. By placing a "relay tower" at a height of 22300 mi, an LMSS can provide ubiquitous radio communication to vehicles roaming in remote or thinly populated area. LMSS is capable of supporting a variety of services, such as two-way alphanumeric service, paging service, full-duplex voice service, and half-duplex dispatch service. A Network Management Center (NMC) will handle the channel requests, channel assignments, and in general the network control functions. A pool of channels is managed at the NMC to be shared by all mobile users. An integrated demand-assigned multiple-access protocol has been developed for the experimental LMSS. The pool of channels is divided into reservation channels and information channels. The information channels can be assigned by the NMC to be either voice channels or data channels. Each mobile user must send a request through one of the reservation channels to the NMC via the ALOHA random-access scheme. Once the request is received and processed, the NMC will examine the current traffic condition and assign an information channel to the user. NMC will periodically update the partitions between the reservation channels, voice channels, and data channels to optimize system performance. Data channel requests are queued at the NMC while voice channel requests are blocked calls cleared. Various operational scenarios have been investigated. Tradeoffs between the data and voice users for a given delay requirement and a given voice call blocking probability have been studied. In addition, performance impacts of such technological advancements as satellite on-board switching and variable bandwidth assignment are discussed.