AN EFFICIENT PROTOCOL FOR PROVIDING INTEGRATED VOICE DATA SERVICES TO MOBILES OVER POWER-LIMITED SATELLITE CHANNELS

Various mobile satellite communication systems are being developed for providing integrated voice/data services over a shared satellite transponder which is power-limited in nature. A common strategy is to use slotted ALOHA request channels to request channel assignments for voice/data calls from a network management station. To maximize efficiency in a system with a power-limited satellite transponder, it is proposed that the bursty nature of voice sources be exploited by the NMS to 'over-assign' channels. This may cause problems of inefficiency, potential instability as well as a degradation in the quality of service offered to the customers. Augmenting this with the introduction of simple state-dependent control procedures provides systems which exhibit more desirable operational features. This approach is proposed and examined in this paper.