Variable bandwidth satellite communication techniques

摘要

Multiple bandwidth requestors (201), a bandwidth manager (401) and a forward link (410) from the bandwidth manager to the bandwidth requestors are used to allocate bandwidth in a return link beam (210). The uplink bandwidth allocation is preferably based on the information to be transmitted provided by the user ADPE (300) and overall system data loading. The preferred method exercised by the bandwidth manager (401) allocates bandwidth on the return link (210)to individual user terminals (200) in either a minimal rate required for the protocol being exercised (213), a committed information rate (214) required for the services being requested, or a fair share rate (214) that allows maximum transfer of data from the user terminal (200) to the gateway (400).