AN EFFICIENT INROUTE (RETURN CHANNEL) LOAD BALANCING SCHEME OF GUARANTEED QOS TRAFFIC MIXED WITH BEST EFFORT TRAFFIC IN AN OVERSUBSCRIBED SATELLITE NETWORK

摘要

A method for balancing inroute traffic load that contains both guaranteed QoS and best effort traffic. Hierarchical grouping levels are defined with the lowest level corresponding to inroutes within the system. Certain levels have common symbol rates, modulation rates, or both. When a new terminal requires admission, it is assigned to entries in the different hierarchical levels so that the inroute traffic load across all levels are balanced. Terminals are admitted to inroutes based, in part, on their channel quality indicator. Inroute traffic load can periodically rebalance based on elapsed time or terminal redistribution.