Patent ID: 7577400

Claim:
A communications system, comprising: a space based system comprising at least one satellite, each satellite transmitting and/or receiving waveforms using a first portion of a predetermined frequency band that is authorized for the provision of space based communications; and a ground based system comprising at least one base station, each base station transmitting and/or receiving waveforms utilizing a second portion of the predetermined frequency band; wherein the communications system is configured to preferentially provide communications to subscriber terminals via the ground based system; and wherein the space based system is configured to provide communications to the subscriber terminals using a first radio resource manager that is not used by the ground based system, a first mobile switching center that is not used by the ground based system and a first network operations center that is not used by the ground based system, and the ground based system is configured to provide communications to the subscriber terminals using a second radio resource manager that is not used by the space based system, a second mobile switching center that is not used by the space based system and a second network operations center that is not used by the space based system.