Patent ID: 8346161

Claim:
A satellite communication system comprising: a feeder link station that issues a relay control by performing an up-link frequency allocation and a down-link frequency allocation in response to a transmission request received from a transmission source terminal in any one of a plurality of service areas; and a satellite repeater that compresses a down-link frequency bandwidth allocated to each of the service areas and relays a communication between the service areas following receipt of the relay control by the feeder link station, the satellite repeater being separate from the feeder link station and communicating with the feeder link station via a feeder link, wherein when the satellite repeater receives from the transmission source terminal a transmission request for new data that specifies a requested bandwidth to be used under a situation where a plurality of data are transmitted to a specific service area from the plurality of service areas, the satellite repeater converts a format of the transmission request and transmits the converted transmission request to the feeder link station via the feeder link, and when the feeder link station receives the converted transmission request, the feeder link station initially determines whether an up-link frequency band from the transmission source terminal to the satellite repeater corresponding to the requested bandwidth is available, when it is determined that the up-link frequency band is available, the feeder link station then determines whether a down-link frequency band included in a down-link frequency bandwidth of the specific service area corresponding to the requested bandwidth is available to be allocated to the new data, and when the down-link frequency band included in the down-link frequency bandwidth of the specific service area is determined to be available, the feeder link station allocates a down-link frequency band used in any of data communication to the specific service area as the down-link frequency band for the new data and transmits the relay control to the satellite repeater via the feeder link, and the satellite repeater receives the relay control from the feeder link station via the feeder link, converts a format of the relay control, and arranges the new data on the down-link frequency band right after the data communication is completed, according to the relay control received from the feeder link station.