Broadband Satellite Networks and Triple Play Applications

In the past years, satellite communications technology has been continuously evolving especially in the direction of providing broadband services. The recently ratified open standard DVB-RCS (digital video broadcasting return channel over satellite) has been developed in parallel with other proprietary technologies and today constitutes one of the most concrete set of specifications for this purpose. Thanks to IP (Internet protocol) the applications running over a DVB-RCS platform, are passing transparently. The main focus of this article is on triple-play real-time applications like voice, video streaming and video conferencing. Following a short introduction on DVB-RCS, in the remainder of the paper, we further describe the main aspects of a DVB-RCS network running simultaneously different applications in the context of a wireless integrated solution of Space Hellas S.A., fulfilling a complete communication offering, for different emergency situations, such as mass disasters, floods, fires, earthquakes etc.