Rural telecommunications using ARABSAT

Examines the possibility of providing service to certain remote areas of the United Arab Emirates by satellite links. The communication requirements are: point to point links (4*2 Mb/s) from Das and Delma islands to main land for parenting remote stored program controlled (SPC) exchanges and a subscriber distribution system (SDS) to serve about 120 subscribers in other sparsely populated areas. A satellite based network may be expected to provide an elegant cost effective solution. A digital network using an ARABSAT transponder has, therefore, been designed to investigate this possibility. Since the ground terminals must be located in remote areas a reliable, unattended operation is desirable. Small, nontracking antennas are, therefore, a preferred choice. Power efficient modulation schemes, coding and capacity enhancement techniques have been considered to achieve the most cost effective utilization of resources. Results indicate that the remote earth stations for the point to point links may use antenna sizes in the range of 4.5 m to 7.5 m while those for the SDS links may employ 2.2 m to 4.5 m antennas.<>