Patent ID: 7706746

Claim:
In a cellular communications system comprising a space based system comprising a first set of cells that selectively use and/or reuse geographically frequencies of a satellite frequency band, and a ground based system comprising a second set of cells, in which at least a portion of the second set of cells have at least a portion of overlapping geographic coverage with the first set of cells, the space based and ground based systems functioning substantially independently and/or autonomously and each using one or more mutually exclusive predetermined frequency sub-bands of the satellite frequency band, a method for initiating communications between a dual mode subscriber terminal and at least one of the space based system and the ground based system, comprising preferentially initiating communications between the dual mode subscriber terminal and the ground based system by assigning to the ground based system for use with the dual mode subscriber terminal at least one of an unused space based system channel, using in the ground based system an unused ground based system channel to establish communications between the ground based system and the dual mode subscriber terminal, reusing in the ground based system to establish communication between the ground based system and the dual mode subscriber terminal a channel used by the space based system having a substantially weak signal relative to the dual mode subscriber terminal and reusing in the ground based system a channel used by the ground based system having a substantially weak signal relative to the subscriber terminal to establish communications between the ground based system and the dual mode subscriber terminal, and using in the space based system a channel assigned to the space based system.