Two-way global broadcast system architecture

The global broadcast system (GBS) implemented by the U.S. Department of Defense utilizes commercially-based digital video broadcast (DVB) technology to enable high-rate (10´s of Mb/s), one-way, data dissemination to a large number of users. Currently, however, user terminals are limited to receive-only operation. For many users, a receive-only configuration is not adequate and a low to medium-rate (10´s to 100´s of kb/s) return channel is required for true network-centric operations and enhanced mission effectiveness. This paper describes a frequency re-use architecture that provides such return channel connectivity to a large number of users without requiring additional satellite bandwidth and with minimal interference to current receive-only users.