Patent ID: 8712322

Claim:
A Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) or Multi Frequency-Time Division Multiple Access (MF-TDMA) satellite network system comprising: a plurality of slave stations; at least one master station; and at least one geosynchronous satellite for Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) and TDMA communications, wherein: a. TDM channels use a clock reference signal and a closed-loop TDMA synchronization control process for slave stations that rely upon regular timing correction messages issued by a master station to the slave stations to maintain high precision TDMA synchronization relative to each other and to a burst time plan so that the satellite network operates with a plurality of slave stations without loss of TDMA synchronization; b. at least one slave station includes at least two TDM receivers configured to receive at least two TDM channels concurrently, each with separate network clocking and synchronization control information from at least one master station located diversely within at least one footprint of at least one satellite; and c. multiple master stations are configured to provide mutually consistent supplementary control information to indicate to each slave station individually, at log-on time, and later as necessary, available clock references and synchronization control information that take precedence, and when one or more of the TDM channels transmitted by the master stations do not contain their own network clock signal and synchronization control information, and enable each slave to receive user content of two or more TDM channels while being slave to only one master station at any time, by filtering out any unneeded clocking and control information.