Patent ID: 8032073

Claim:
A method of communication of a slave station with more than one gateway stations in a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) or Multi Frequency-Time Division Multiple Access (MF-TDMA) satellite network, wherein one gateway station is a primary gateway station, the method comprising: receiving information, by the slave station, from an assigned Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) channel transmitting network control information; joining an assigned TDMA or MF-TDMA network by employing a received information from the assigned TDM channel and logging on to an assigned primary gateway; getting permission and required information from the primary gateway station to communicate with at least one other gateway station, when the primary gateway station is so configured to recognize communication capabilities of the slave station, or when the slave station is so preconfigured to attempt such communication with the at least one other gateway station without the permission of the primary gateway station; and communicating with the at least one other gateway station by receiving from, transmitting to, or receiving from and transmitting to the at least one other gateway station, wherein the slave station having capability to transmit to multiple gateway stations is configured to have TDMA burst transmitters of the slave station aligned with TDMA burst receivers at the other gateway station by employing a Global Positioning System (GPS) timing reference and a Network Time Protocol client such that the other gateway station is able to link its local timing reference equipment closely to the network clock reference timing of the primary gateway station.