Patent ID: 6947974

Claim:
A communications system for communicating between an information provider and at least one client computer on a computer network, the system comprising: a satellite receiver operating to receive download data from the information provider; a plurality of client computers on a computer network each of said client computers including first network hardware and first network software for communication with the information provider; and a server computer, including second network hardware and second network software for communications with the computer network, in electronic communication with said satellite receiver and in electronic communication with the computer network, said server computer having satellite receiver interface software installed thereon operating to receive the download data from said satellite receiver and operating to route the download data to said plurality of client computers for use by the application software on each of said client computers, via the computer network, in order to provide the advantages of satellite communications for high volume download data packets; and said server computer network being programmed to route the download data to client computers on the computer network irrespective of the client computer's operating systems such that said server computer does not require the same operating system for each client computer of the plurality of client computers; and wherein said satellite receiver interface software further comprises the steps of: setting up RAM adapters; establishing a timestamp for a received packet; testing whether said received packet is a package delivery or an Internet delivery; if said received packet is a package delivery, testing to determine if said packet will update a catalog, testing to determine if a site will be updated by said packet; determining whether an end-of-file has been encountered; determining if a file within said packet is incomplete; and if said file is not incomplete marking said file as complete.