Multicast service delivery over high throughput satellite in a ka spot-beam network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016359551-A1
Application number	US-201514730558-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 4, 2015
Priority date	Jun 4, 2015
Publication date	Dec 8, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A method and a satellite communication system are provided. At least one satellite gateway earth station receives at least one multicast stream from an external network. In a static forwarding mode, the at least one satellite gateway earth station replicates and forwards traffic from the at least one multicast stream over at least one first respective outroute carrier of at least one first respective spot beam of a satellite regardless of whether any terminal is arranged to actively receive any of the at least one multicast stream. In a dynamic forwarding mode, the at least one satellite gateway earth station replicates and forwards second traffic from any of the at least one multicast stream over at least one second respective outroute carrier of at least one second respective spot beam only when at least one respective terminal is arranged to actively receive the any of the at least one multicast stream.

First claim

I claim as my invention:

1 . A satellite communication system comprising:
one or more satellite gateway earth stations; and a satellite configured to communicate with a plurality of terminals via a plurality of spot beams formed by the satellite, each of the plurality of terminals being arranged to receive communications via the satellite and a respective spot beam of the plurality of spot beams, wherein:
the one or more satellite gateway earth stations is arranged to receive one or more multicast streams from an external network, and
when a satellite gateway earth station of the one or more satellite gateway earth stations is configured to be in a static forwarding mode, the satellite gateway earth station is statically configured to replicate and forward each of the one or more multicast streams over one or more first respective outroute carriers of at least one first respective spot beam of the plurality of spot beams regardless of whether any terminals are arranged to actively receive any of the one or more multicast streams, and
when the satellite gateway earth station is configured to be in a dynamic forwarding mode, the satellite gateway earth station is dynamically configured to replicate and forward ones of the one or more multicast streams over one or more second respective outroute carriers of at least one second respective spot beam of the plurality of spot beams only when at least one respective terminal is arranged to actively receive each of the ones of the one or more multicast streams over the one or more second respective outroute carriers of the at least one second respective spot beam of the plurality of spot beams.

2 . The satellite communication system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of spot beams are Ka-band spot beams.

3 . The satellite communication system of claim 1 , further comprising:
the plurality of terminals, wherein
each of the plurality of terminals that are in an active mode include a proxy agent, such that the proxy agent in each respective terminal of the plurality of terminals that are in the active mode makes a determination whether to forward a received multicast stream on a local area network only when at least one respective active receiver is downstream of the respective terminal of the plurality of terminals that are in the active mode.

4 . The satellite communication system of claim 1 , further comprising:
the plurality of terminals, wherein
each terminal of the plurality of terminals belonging to any multicast group advertises a respective current eligible outroute modulation coding and multicast membership information based on an individual link condition of the each terminal to the satellite gateway earth station, and
responsive to receiving the advertised respective current eligible outroute modulation coding and multicast membership information from each of the plurality of terminals belonging to the any multicast group, the satellite gateway earth station sends the multicast stream for a multicast group on a lowest or most robust advertised outroute modulation coding advertised by each terminal of the plurality of terminals receiving the multicast stream on the multicast group.

5 . The satellite communication system of claim 3 , wherein
when the satellite gateway earth station is configured to be in the dynamic forwarding mode, the respective proxy agent in each of the plurality of terminals, that are arranged to actively receive at least one respective multicast stream of the ones of the one or more multicast streams, forwards information to the satellite gateway earth station informing the satellite gateway earth station to forward the at least one respective multicast stream of the ones of the one or more received multicast streams over the one or more second respective outroute carrier of the at least one second respective spot beam associated with each of the plurality of terminals that are arranged to actively receive the at least one respective multicast stream of the ones of the one or more multicast streams.

6 . The satellite communication system of claim 5 , further comprising:
a peering router arranged to communicate with the external network and the satellite gateway earth station, wherein the satellite gateway earth station sends a join signal to the peering router for each multicast address associated with a multicast stream that the satellite gateway earth station is configured to forward.

7 . The satellite communication system of claim 1 , wherein
the satellite gateway earth station is configured to map one or more multicast IP addresses to a single layer 2 spacelink MAC address, such that the satellite gateway earth station sends a packet associated with one of the one or more multicast IP addresses to a plurality of destination terminals using the single layer 2 spacelink MAC address over one or more outroute carriers of one or more spot beams associated with any of the plurality of destination terminals.

8 . The satellite communication system of claim 7 , wherein packets having a respective multicast IP address that matches any one of the one or more mapped multicast IP addresses are encrypted based on a single multicast key before the packets are sent, using the single layer 2 spacelink MAC address, to respective terminals.

9 . The satellite communication system of claim 7 , wherein
the layer 2 spacelink MAC address includes a virtual network operator identifier to ensure that the layer 2 spacelink address is unique across layer 2 spacelink addresses for a plurality of virtual network operators.

10 . The satellite communication system of claim 7 , wherein:
the satellite gateway earth station comprises a key dispatcher for distributing a multicast session key to ones of the plurality of terminals belonging to a multicast session and for handling requests for the multicast session key from at least one of the ones of the plurality of terminals belonging to the multicast session; and the satellite gateway earth station encrypts, using the multicast session key, traffic to be sent to the at least one of the ones of the plurality of terminals belonging to a multicast group.

11 . The satellite communication system of claim 10 , wherein the multicast session supports a hitless key update mechanism.

12 . The satellite communication system of claim 1 , wherein a priority of multicast traffic is configurable either statically or through differentiated services code point marking.

13 . The satellite communication system of claim 12 , wherein a virtual network operator is permitted to specify policies that drive which multicast sessions are dropped during oversubscription or congestion.

14 . A method for providing support for multicast sessions in a satellite communication system, the method comprising:
receiving, by a satellite gateway earth station, a multicast stream from an external network; replicating and forwarding, by the satellite gateway earth station, the multicast stream over at least one respective outroute carrier of at least one respective spot beam of a plurality of spot beams of a satellite regardless of whether one or more terminals are arranged to actively receive the multicast stream over the at least one respective outroute carrier, when the satellite gateway earth station is configured to be in a static forwarding mode; and replicating and forwarding, by the satellite gateway earth station, the multicast stream over at least one respective outroute carrier of at least one respective spot beam of a plurality of spot beams of a satellite only when a respective terminal is arranged to actively receive the multicas

Assignees

• Hughes Network Systems Llc

Inventors

• Roy Satyajit

Classifications

• H04B7/2041

  Spot beam multiple access · CPC title

• H04L65/103

  in the network · CPC title

• H04B7/18513

  Transmission in a satellite or space-based system · CPC title

• H04B7/18523 Primary

  Satellite systems for providing broadcast service to terrestrial stations, i.e. broadcast satellite service (arrangements specially adapted for satellite broadcast receiving H04H40/90; picture transmission via satellite H04N1/00103; television transmission via satellite H04N7/20) · CPC title

• H04B7/18517 Primary

  Transmission equipment in earth stations · CPC title