Air interfaces for satellite based digital TV broadcasting in the railway environment

This paper deals with the analysis of possible air interfaces to be employed in order to provide digital TV services to high speed trains via satellite. This turns out to be an extremely challenging issue, since in addition to traditional impairments characterizing the land mobile satellite channel, one has to face the presence of frequent tunnels, whose duration can easily reach several kilometers, and the presence of a variety of peculiar obstacles, such as electrical trellises and posts with and without brackets, which may result in frequent and deep fades. A large variety of possible solutions, based on standardized air interfaces with proper modifications, are analyzed by means of extensive software simulations, showing that effective solutions can be devised. Some consideration concerning the deployment of terrestrial gap-fillers to bridge the satellite connectivity inside long railway tunnels, large train station and within dense urban areas are also briefly addressed.