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Communication system and method

  • US 9,923,624 B2
  • Filed: 09/20/2013
  • Issued: 03/20/2018
  • Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2012
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A communication system, including:

  • a plurality of user nodes, each user node for receiving data from a remote application program, the data including message data for communication to a central application program operatively associated with the remote application program;

    a plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes, wherein the gateway nodes are distributed over the surface of the earth, in the air or in space;

    a hub for communicating with the plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes to receive the message data for communication to the central application program; and

    two or more access nodes for receiving the message data from at least one of the plurality of user nodes via a first communications interface, wherein the two or more access nodes comprises at least one satellite based access node and at least one terrestrial based access node and each of the at least one satellite based access node and the at least one terrestrial based access node implements the same first communications interface, and the two or more access nodes communicates the received message data to the hub, wherein the at least one satellite based access node communicates the message data to the hub via a second communications interface to one or more of the plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes and the at least one terrestrial based access node communicates the message data to the hub either via the second communications interface to one or more of the plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes or via a direct connection to the hub, wherein at least one of the first communications interface and the second communications interface operates in the range of 30 MHz to 1 GHz, and wherein, to route a message to the hub from one of the two or more access nodes via one or more of the plurality of geographically distributed gateway nodes, the one access node is configured to select one or more geographically distributed gateway nodes that are expected to reduce the message delivery latency to the hub for the message data.

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