TERMINAL FOR COMMUNICATING WITH A COMMUNICATION SATELLITE
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A terminal for communicating with a communication satellite includes a first transceiver for communicating with at least one device in a short range network, and a second transceiver for communicating with a geostationary communication satellite in a network deploying a plurality of forward channels for the communication satellite to transmit data to the terminal and a plurality of return channels for the terminal to transmit data to said communication satellite. The second transceiver is configured to transmit data from the at least one device in one of the plurality of return channels. The at least one device may include a plurality of utility meters and other sensors. A large system including a plurality of the terminals, a communication satellite and a data authority may provide a system for collecting utility meter readings across a geographical region.
-
Citations
64 Claims
-
1-34. -34. (canceled)
-
35. A terminal comprising:
-
a transceiver configured to communicate with a geostationary communication satellite in a network deploying a plurality of forward channels for the communication satellite to transmit data to said terminal and a plurality of return channels for the terminal to transmit data to said communication satellite, the forward and return channels comprising a plurality of frames divided into time slots in a predetermined frame structure, a memory configured to store one or more addresses of said terminal, at least one of the one or more addresses comprising a group address indicating a group of terminals to which the terminal belongs and a terminal specific address within that group; and a controller configured to control the transceiver to receive, at a predetermined time, a group message in a forward channel of said plurality of forward channels from said communication satellite, the group message being transmitted according to the predetermined frame structure and indicating a group address, the controller further being configured to determine whether the group address matches a stored group address for the terminal and in response to a determination that the group address matches a stored group address to control the transceiver to listen for a terminal specific message to said terminal in the frame in which said group message was transmitted. - View Dependent Claims (36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58)
-
-
59. A method of communicating with a geostationary communication satellite in a wide area network using a terminal in the wide area network, the network deploying a plurality of forward channels for the geostationary communication satellite to transmit data to the terminal and a plurality of return channels for the terminal to transmit data to the geostationary communication satellite, the forward and return channels comprising a plurality of frames divided into time slots, the method comprising:
-
receiving in the terminal a group message from the geostationary communication satellite at a predetermined time in a forward channel, the group message comprising a group address indicating a group of terminals; comparing the group address to a stored group address; and if the group address matches a stored group address, listening for a terminal specific messages in the frame in which said group message was received. - View Dependent Claims (60, 61, 62)
-
-
63. A system for communicating with a plurality of terminals via a geostationary communication satellite, the plurality of terminals and the communication satellite communicating in a network deploying a plurality of forward channels for the geostationary communication satellite to transmit data to the plurality of terminals and a plurality of return channels for the terminals to transmit data to the geostationary communication satellite, the plurality of forward channels and the plurality of return channels comprising a plurality of frames divided into time slots, the system comprising:
for a transceiver configured to transmit a group message and a subsequent terminal specific message via a geostationary communication satellite to a terminal in one of said forward channels, said group message indicating a group address for a group of terminals of said plurality of terminals and said subsequent terminal specific message indicating a terminal specific address of a terminal belonging to said group of terminals. - View Dependent Claims (64)
Specification