Multiple-access capacity in mobile user satellite systems

The channel capacity of a satellite direct sequence CDMA system is analyzed including the effects of faded user interference, overlapping antenna beams, imperfect equalization of the antenna pattern across an antenna cell, and diversity reception. Simplified models are used to describe the impact of these effects on the channel capacity of single and multiple cofrequency CDMA systems. In a comparison of the uplink and downlink paths, the uplink of the CDMA system is shown to limit the channel capacity because the downlink can utilize code-orthogonality and coherent demodulation. In a multiple system comparison between band-shared CDMA and band-segmented FDMA/TDMA technologies, FDMA/TDMA is shown to provide about the same capacity for uniformly distributed traffic conditions over many cells and dramatically better capacity when traffic is concentrated in one cell. Due to the peak nature of telephony, this result supports the use of band-segmented systems in mobile user satellite systems