Patent ID: 6556828
Filing Date: 2003-04-29
Classification: H04B

Abstract:
A communications network architecture comprising:geosynchronous satellite communications system including a geosynchronous communications satellite; a low earth orbit satellite communications system including a plurality of low earth orbit communications satellites; a low earth orbit gateway comprising a terminal for communicating with the low orbit communications satellites using multiple access communication channels, and for communicating with a public switch telephone network: a geosynchronous gateway comprising a terminal or communicating with the geosynchronous communications satellite by overlaying multiple access communication channels onto fixed channel assignments and transmitting the overlayed channel assignments, and for communicating with the public switch telephone network; and a fixed terminal having a handset for selectively communicating with the low earth orbit communications satellite using the multiple access communication channels, and with the geosynchronous communications satellite by extracting the multiple access communication channel from the fixed channel assignments.