A personal communications network using a Ka-bandsatellite

The feasibility of a personal communications network using portable terminals that can provide 4.8 kb/s voice communications to a hub station via Ka-band geosynchronous satellite has been investigated. Tradeoffs are examined so that the combined system of hub and gateway earth stations, the satellite, and the personal terminals can provide a competitive service in terms of cost, availability, and quality. A baseline system that uses a spacecraft with approximately 140 spot beams to cover the contiguous US (CONUS) and 5 W power amplifiers in each beam is described. Satellite access in both the forward and return directions uses frequency-division multiple-access/code-division multiple-access (FDMA/CDMA) with a chip rate of 2.5 Mchip/s