A Satellite Time-Division Multiple-Access Experiment

An important inherent advantage of communications via satellite is that large numbers of earth stations, separated by long distances, can communicate with each other simultaneously. Thus a satellite provides a multiple-access capability by nature of its physical location. Earth stations can be multiplexed at the satellite by means of a variety of techniques. One technique is to use time-division multiple-access (TDMA) for satellite multiplexing. Field tests using the INTELSAT I (Early Bird) satellite have shown that TDMA is a practical method for using the satellite multiple-access capability efficiently. This paper describes the experimental system and the results of the field tests.