Patent ID: 6993288

Claim:
A method of coordinating communications between ground stations and fixed beam satellites, the method comprising the steps of: (a) assigning a color to each beam of an antenna on a satellite to create a color pattern, wherein the color pattern matches a frequency reuse pattern for the antenna; (b) dividing a number of user channels allocated to the satellite into equal groups that equal the number of beam colors within the color pattern; (c) requesting a virtual channel from a resource manager; (d) searching for available channels and sending a virtual channel number to the ground station, wherein the virtual channel number is assigned to the ground station when the same virtual channel number is not used by another ground station within a beam diameter of the requesting ground station; (e) receiving the virtual channel number and satellite parameters; and (f) determining an uplink frequency and polarization based on the virtual channel number and satellite parameters by the ground station, wherein identical frequencies are reused in a different beam with the same color and the ground station moves between beam colors over time.