A communication system, including: a plurality of user nodes, each user node for receiving data from at least one remote application program, the data from one of the at least one remote application programs including message data for communication to at least one central application program operatively associated with the remote application program, wherein one of the at least one remote application programs operatively associated with one of the at least one central application programs operate in combination to deliver or provide a service; a plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes, wherein the gateway nodes are distributed over the surface of the earth, in the air or in space; two or more access nodes; and a central application hub for communicating with the one or more of the plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes to receive the message data for communication to the at least one central application program and to provide an application interface by which the at least one central application program may communicate with an associated remote application program, wherein each gateway node is configured to provide communication services to the central application hub and the two or more access nodes for communicating messages to the central application program, and the two or more access nodes are for receiving the message data from one of the plurality of user nodes via a first communications interface wherein the two or more access nodes includes at least one satellite based access node and at least one terrestrial based access node and each of the at least one satellite based access node and the at least one terrestrial based access node implements the same first communications interface, and the first communications interface comprises a physical layer wherein the physical layer determines how bits are physically transmitted on a radio channel and implements a physical communications link between a user node and an access node, and the two or more access nodes communicates the received message data to the central application hub, wherein the at least one satellite based access node communicates the message data to the central application hub via a second communications interface to one or more of the plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes and the at least one terrestrial based access node communicates the message data to the central application hub either via the second communications interface to one or more of the plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes or via a direct connection to the central application hub, wherein the first communications interface and/or the second communications interface operates at less than 1GHz. a plurality of user nodes, each user node for receiving data from at least one remote application program, the data from one of the at least one remote application programs including message data for communication to at least one central application program operatively associated with the remote application program, wherein one of the at least one remote application programs operatively associated with one of the at least one central application programs operate in combination to deliver or provide a service; a plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes, wherein the gateway nodes are distributed over the surface of the earth, in the air or in space; two or more access nodes; and a central application hub for communicating with the one or more of the plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes to receive the message data for communication to the at least one central application program and to provide an application interface by which the at least one central application program may communicate with an associated remote application program, wherein each gateway node is configured to provide communication services to the central application hub and the two or more access nodes for communicating messages to the central application program, and the two or more access nodes are for receiving the message data from one of the plurality of user nodes via a first communications interface wherein the two or more access nodes includes at least one satellite based access node and at least one terrestrial based access node and each of the at least one satellite based access node and the at least one terrestrial based access node implements the same first communications interface, and the first communications interface comprises a physical layer wherein the physical layer determines how bits are physically transmitted on a radio channel and implements a physical communications link between a user node and an access node, and the two or more access nodes communicates the received message data to the central application hub, wherein the at least one satellite based access node communicates the message data to the central application hub via a second communications interface to one or more of the plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes and the at least one terrestrial based access node communicates the message data to the central application hub either via the second communications interface to one or more of the plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes or via a direct connection to the central application hub, wherein the first communications interface and/or the second communications interface operates at less than 1GHz.