Patent ID: 8442432

Claim:
A method of selecting a mode for a terminal in a satellite communications network, the method comprising: identifying a set of modes that are supported by the terminal, each mode comprising a different combination of one of a plurality of modulation schemes supported at the terminal and one of a plurality of carrier groups supported at the terminal; identifying a signal quality metric associated with a communications link between the terminal and the satellite; calculating a baseline signal quality metric for the terminal comprising the identified signal quality metric less a margin; identifying a minimum mode signal quality metric for each of at least a subset of the modes of the set; eliminating modes of the at least the subset where the minimum mode signal quality metric is greater than the baseline signal quality metric; and selecting the mode for the terminal from remaining modes of the at least a subset according to a selection criteria, wherein the selection criteria comprises selecting, when a plurality of modes with different modulation schemes comprises the remaining modes, the mode for the terminal comprising a mode with a highest order modulation scheme of the remaining modes.