Patent ID: 7738596

Claim:
A satellite communication system, comprising: a satellite earth station operably coupled to at least one data network; and a plurality of satellite modems, each satellite modem configured to communicate with the satellite earth station via at least one servicing satellite, wherein the satellite earth station includes: a host processor configured to receive data packets from the at least one data network, a Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) Media Access Control (MAC) configured to format the data packets into one or more Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) frames, a satellite modulator, coupled to the DOCSIS MAC, configured to modulate the one or more MPEG frames based upon a selected modulation scheme from among a plurality of modulation schemes and a selected code rate from among a plurality of code rates to provide downstream output data for transmission to at least one of the plurality of satellite modems, the satellite modulator including: a plurality of queues, each queue configured to store the one or more of the MPEG frames based upon a modulation scheme and a code rate to provide a queue block of data, the plurality of queues being configured such that each queue corresponds to a possible combination of modulation scheme and code rate among a plurality of possible combinations of modulation schemes and code rates, a multirate turbo encoder configured to receive the queue block of data from a selected queue from the plurality of queues and to encode the queue block of data using the code rate associated with the selected queue to provide an inner encoded data block, a modulator configured to modulate the inner encoded data block using the modulation scheme associated with the selected queue to provide the downstream output data.