Patent ID: 6738346
Filing Date: 2004-05-18
Classification: H04B

Abstract:
A spot beam processing satellite having a plurality of spot beams for use in a satellite communication system, comprising:a plurality of downlink queues including downlink data cells, each of said queues corresponding to a downlink connection; a downlink modulator for transmitting the downlink data cells from the satellite; and a downlink scheduler for passing the downlink data cells from said plurality of downlink queues to said downlink modulator, said downlink scheduler includes a beam selector for selecting one of the plurality of spot beams to use when downlinking the downlink data cells, said beam selector using a packet fair queueing (PFQ) method to select the spot beam, said downlink scheduler further including a plurality of wholesale selectors for selecting the downlink data cells that are associated with one of a plurality of wholesalers, each one of said wholesale selectors being associated with one of said plurality of spot beams, and including a plurality of retail selectors for selecting the downlink data cells that are associated with one of a plurality of retail connections, each one of said retail selectors being associated with one of said plurality of wholesalers.