SDH for the fixed satellite service

This paper examines the fixed satellite system in the context of SDH technology and proposes a possible earth station architecture capitalising on the benefits that SDH equipment offers. It is shown that a combination of multi-destination STM-1 or STM-0 (155 or 52 Mbit/s) and sub-STM-1 point-to-point sections and integration of the multiplexing and modern equipment would permit SDH path continuity between Earth stations, allowing the satellite network to be integrated with managed terrestrial networks to form global managed transmission platforms; would provide bandwidth and Earth station equipment savings at frontier stations, and would prevent controlled plesiochronous slips in Earth station Doppler buffers. Outstanding technical issues are considered and SDH pointer corruption is examined in more detail