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- Brief introduction to Satelite Communications
- and the integration PSTN netwokrs.
-
- by hybrid
- (hybrid@phunc.com)
- (darkcyde.8m.com/hybrid/hybrid.htm)
-
-
- This is just a very quick file to acomany lowtek's article on satelite
- communications. Just did a little research, and found a little more out about
- sateleites and the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). The majour
- players in the satelite industry are INTELSAT (International
- Telecommunications Satelite Organisation), and EUTELSAT (European
- Telecommunications Satelite service)- part of the European Space Agency (ESA)
- and PASAT (Pan American Satelite Inc) These organisations lease space on
- there satelites for other companys such as telcos, private sector operations,
- etc, etc. These systems are often interconnected to the PSTN and ISDN nets
- on the ground, and implement dishes with diameters ranging from 3.5 to 13m.
- An interesting development I discovered is called 'Briefcase satelite
- newsgathering (SNG) terminal'.. It is a small, lightweight system developed
- by a co-operation between Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Teleglobe
- Canada, and Skywave Electronics Ltd. The system weighs only 14.5 kg, and is
- capable of providing good quality speech, still pictures, plus data packets.
- Again, this system is readily being intergrated into our PSTN. The system
- operates over INMARSAT-C links of 1.5 to 1.6 GHz to a hub earth station
- which operates in the 4 and 6 GHz band. Basically, I would imagine that
- satelite systems are connected to the PSTN in the following way:
-
- ___
- _________|______ _______ | |
- ____ | | | | |::x:::| | SAT 1
- | a) |:::::::::::| PSTN | |>-------|_______|::y:::| |
- |____| |_________|______| Base station |___|
- | A ////
- (customer A, in ////
- the UK) ____|__ //// <-- signal
- PSTN: Intra-lata exchange | | |////
- carriers, operating over | | |//
- different switching and | | || Mid-way base
- signaling systems, such as | | |\\ station.
- the CO, 2 4ESS switches, |____|__|\\\\
- DMS25O international gates. | \\\\ <-- signal
- \\\\
- \\\\
- _________|______ _______ | |
- ____ | | | | |::x:::| |
- | b) |:::::::::::| PSTN | |>-------|_______|::y:::| | SAT 2
- |____| |_________|______| Base station |___|
- | B
- (customer B, in x= uplink
- Australia) y= downlink
-
-
- I will be honest here and say that I don't really know exactly how Earth to
- Satelite PSTN networking actually works, but if I was to guess it would be
- similar to my above diagram, and involve the following routing proccess over
- the PSTN... Say I was customer (A) and I wanted to call customer (B) over in
- Austrailia, here is what I believe would happen: I pick up the phone and
- begin to dial the international country code for Austrailia.. My local
- exchange recognises that conventional routing over the network will not
- terminate the call, so then forwards my number query over to a DMS
- international exchange unit, where the best route for my call is decided by
- call allocation software. Beacuse the distance of the call is not conviniant
- for land lines, or sub mersive transmission, I am then forwarded to a special
- telco satelite base station, where a channel is selected and researved for my
- call. An uplink and downlink channel is then setup betwwen Base station A and
- Base station B in Australia. Conventional Signaling protocols in Australia
- then setup the call acrross the many switches over there until an incoming
- call trunk transmission is detected by customer B's local office, which then
- routes a call translation and set's up a channel via it's PSTN back to the
- PSTN in the UK... B then picks up the phone and the data link is complete.
- Because Australia is the opposite side of the world to the UK, a base
- station in the middle would have to rebound the signal, and data transmission
- back upto the geo-stationary satelite over Australia. When the call is
- terminated, all channels, circuits, switches, contacts, are reset and are
- ready for another call. I would imagine there are litteraly 1OO's of geo-
- stationary satelites that are used by the telcos for international calling,
- note: for those of you who have not been paying attention! - geo-stationary
- means the satelite is in syncronous orbit with the earth, and would appear to
- be still if seen from the earths surface. The orbit at which these satelites
- reside is called 'the clarke belt' named after Authur C Clarkes vision of a
- place orbiting the earth that remains syncronous with the earths rotation.
- Anyways, this could go on forever, so I'm gonna conclude this short file. For
- more info on this subject, just do a web portal search for things like
- intelsat, eutelsat, pstn routing, geo-syncronous.. blah blah blah. Hope you
- enjoyed...
-
-
- ___ ___ _____.___.____________________ ____________
- hybrid@b4b0.org / | \\__ | |\______ \______ \/_ \______ \
- hybrid@ninex.com / ~ \/ | | | | _/| _/ | || | \
- hybrid.dtmf.org \ Y /\____ | | | \| | \ | || ` \
- ---------------- \___|_ / / ______| |______ /|____|_ / |___/_______ /
- \/ \/ \/ \/ \/
-