Patent ID: 7650379

Claim:
In a two-way satellite communication system having a plurality of upstream channels for communicating information from a plurality of subscriber terminals to a gateway hub and a plurality of virtual downstream channels for communicating information from the gateway to a selection of the subscriber terminals, a method for managing data traffic in the satellite communication system having true random access with more than one transmission present at the same time, the method comprising the steps of: transmitting information as data on one of the virtual downstream channels in response to information transmitted on at least one of the upstream channels; estimating channel load of multiple users in multiple simultaneous access in the upstream channels; calculating on an ongoing basis a congestion threshold value using said estimate of channel load; selecting a current congestion threshold value; then at each said subscriber terminal, performing an experiment comparing the congestion threshold value with a random number to obtain a transmission value determinative of whether a packet is eligible to be transmitted by each said terminal; and regulating the transmission of packets in the upstream channels according to said transmission value so that the transmitted load from all said terminals has a rate of packet transmission that is less than the congestion threshold value times the offered load to the terminal, and the virtual downstream channels bear a more evenly distributed load.