 A transponder channel aboard a satellite may

be fully loaded by a single transmission from

an earth station. This is referred to as a single
access mode of operation.
 A transponder can also be loaded by a
number of carriers. These may originate from
a number of earth stations geographically
separate, and each earth station may transmit
one or more of the carriers. This mode of
operation is termed multiple access.
• FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access)
• TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access)
• CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)
 pre-assigned multiple access
 demand-assigned multiple access
 In this method, circuits are allocated on a
fixed or partially fixed basis to certain users.
 These circuits are therefore not available for
general use.
 Preassignment is simple to implement but is
efficient only for circuits with continuous
heavy traffic.
In this method, all circuits are available to all
users and are assigned according to the
demand. DAMA results in more efficient
over-all use of the circuits but is more costly
and complicated to implement
 Frequency slots may be preassigned to
analog and digital signals.
 The signals are frequency-division
multiplexed, frequency modulated (FM), with
FDMA to the satellite.
 Ex: Intelsat SCPC system
 In the demand-assigned mode of operation,
the transponder frequency bandwidth is
subdivided into a number of channels.
 As in the preassigned access mode, carriers
may be frequency modulated with analog
information signals
 Ex: Intelsat SPADE system
 With TDMA, only one carrier uses the
transponder at any one time.
 the signal information is transmitted in
bursts, TDMA is only suited to digital signals.
 Digital data can be assembled into burst
format for transmission and reassembled
from the received bursts through the use of
digital buffer memories
 An example of a preassigned TDMA network
is the CSC for the Spade network
 A number of methods are available for
providing traffic flexibility with TDMA.
 The burst length assigned to a station may
be varied as the traffic demand varies.
 A central control station may be employed by
the network to control the assignment of
burst lengths to each participating station.
 Alternatively, each station may determine its
own burst-length requirements and assign
these in accordance with a prearranged
network discipline.
 With CDMA the individual carriers may be
present simultaneously within the same rf
bandwidth, but each carrier carries a unique
code waveform (in addition to the information
signal) that allows it to be separated from all
the others at the receiver.