Patent ID: 8159995

Claim:
A method of selecting satellite channels in a transmission system, comprising: providing a data source, a data sink, satellite modems and a satellite radio link with a general channel and a dedicated channel; transmitting a data stream at a start of a data transmission via the general channel; determining transmission characteristics of the general channel based upon the data stream by the data sink; sending a control command by the data sink to the data source when the transmission characteristics of the general channel drop below certain minimum transmission characteristics; prompting the data source by the data sink to use the dedicated channel for a further data transmission; transmitting a monitoring data stream by the data source via the general channel to the data sink concurrent to the data transmission by the data source to the data sink via the dedicated channel; determining the transmission characteristics of the general channel based upon the monitoring data stream transmitted by the data sink; sending a control command by the data sink to the data source when certain minimum transmission characteristics of the general channel, as determined based upon the monitoring stream, are exceeded; and prompting the data source by the data sink to use the general channel for further data transmission.