Technology challenges in TDMA approach to 3rd generation personal communication services

The paper addresses some topics relevant to the 3rd generation personal communication services (PCS) in view of a potential utilization of time division multiple access (TDMA), i.e. one of the two candidate access technique for 3rd generation PCS. Since satellite communications are essential to provide PCS on a global scenario, terrestrial and satellite network integration is a mandatory requirement; this means that translation to the satellite world of the basic breakthroughs of terrestrial cellular network is required. In that respect the paper addresses some specific TDMA topics such as packet reservation multiple access (PRMA), dynamic channel allocation (DCA), synchronization of the control decisions, seamless handover, frame alignment. Particular emphasis is put on integration of satellites with terrestrial cellular networks