Patent ID: 8010043

Claim:
A satellite for illuminating a geographic area with signals, the satellite comprising: a power source; an antenna; a plurality of spot beams emanating from the antenna to service a plurality of service links, wherein: the plurality of spot beams includes a first spot beam and a second spot beam, the first spot beam illuminates a first region within the geographic area, in order to send information to a first plurality of subscriber terminals, the second spot beam illuminates a second region within the geographic area and adjacent to the first region, in order to send information to a second plurality of subscriber terminals, whereby the first and second regions overlap, the first spot beam as sent to at least one of the first plurality of subscriber terminals is affected by interference from other signal sources including the second spot beam at a signal-to-interference ratio C/I, the first spot beam as sent to the at least one of the first plurality of subscriber terminals is further affected by noise at a signal-to-noise ratio C/N, whereby reception of signals from the first spot beam by the at least one of the first plurality of subscriber terminals is interference-dominated such that C/I is less than C/N, and the satellite is operated to maximize data-carrying capacity of the plurality of spot beams as measured in bits/Hz, by utilizing a beam pattern having a specific number of color(s) of frequency and polarization and specific beam spacing that results in higher data-carrying capacity of the plurality of spot beams than achieved with other alternative numbers of color(s) of frequency and polarization and beam spacings.