Patent ID: 9276663
Filing Date: 2016-03-01
CPC Classification: H04B,H04L,H04W

Claim Text:
1. A system for providing layer-2 connectivity through a switched ground segment network providing connectivity at layer-2 of the OSI model (L2) between a plurality of geographically separated nodes, the system comprising: a gateway connected at L2 to at least one of the plurality of geographically separated nodes of the switched ground segment network and in communication with one or more bent pipe satellites, the one or more bent pipe satellites configured to receive signals from one or more user terminals and to relay the signals at layer-1 of the OSI model (L1), the gateway utilizing at least one service provided by the at least one of the plurality of geographically separated nodes for providing communication services between the one or more user terminals and entities not within the switched ground segment network, the gateway comprising: wherein the first L2 switch of the gateway transmits the virtually tagged data packets at L2 to a second L2 switch of a core node of the switched ground segment network, for communication to the entity based on each of the virtual tagging tuples associated with each of the virtually tagged data packets, the core node comprising a network interface coupled with a second network associated with the entity.