Patent ID: 6295283
Filing Date: 2001-09-25
Classification: H04B,H04Q

Abstract:
A method for transferring a data message in a connectionless manner from a selected source terminal to a selected destination terminal, in a communications network which supports connection-oriented communications, the communications network having a plurality of source terminals, destination terminals and satellites having uplink and downlink antenna beams with one of the uplink antenna beams covering the selected source terminal and a selected downlink antenna beam covering the selected destination terminal, the method comprising the steps of:assigning a selected downlink beam identifier to said selected downlink antenna beam which uniquely identifies the selected downlink antenna beam within the network;assigning an address to the selected destination terminal of which a preselected portion includes the selected downlink beam identifier of the selected downlink antenna beam covering the selected destination terminal;formulating a data packet comprising said data message and said address of said selected destination terminal;segmenting said data packet into one or more cells, each cell being of a predetermined length a first portion of which comprises a cell header and a second portion of which comprises a cell body;formatting each said cell header with sufficient information to route said cells from said selected source terminal to said selected destination terminal comprising the steps of:defining a cell type identifier field and a downlink beam identifier field in each cell header,placing a predetermined value into said cell type identifier field of each said cell header to identify that said cells are to be treated in a connectionless manner,copying the selected downlink beam identifier from the address of the selected destination terminal,placing said copied downlink beam identifier into the downlink beam identifier field of each of the cell headers;sending said cells to a selected satellite in the network through one of the uplink antenna beams;using said selected downlink beam identifier to route the cells in the network to the satellite having the selected downlink antenna beam corresponding to the selected downlink beam identifier;broadcasting said cells over the selected downlink antenna beam; and,receiving said cells by destination terminals located within said selected downlink antenna beam, one of the destination terminals being the selected destination terminal.