TV-Centric Technologies To Provide Remote Areas With Two-Way Satellite Broadband Access

This paper presents a newly low-cost defined satellite architecture for the distribution of new broadband interactive TV-centric services to actual end-users in the home. It is known that satellite connections provides the best and quickest solution to reduce the digital divide in less-favored areas, which has been considered as a major issue in the diffusion of broadband access. The platform employs DVB-S(2) and DVB-RCS technologies in the forward and the return link, respectively. The flexible framing structure of DVB-S2 and the adoption of the Adaptive Coding & Modulation (ACM) functionality allow an efficient exploitation of the satellite resource. The paper provides a description of the TVCentric services, the required QoS and the relevant system architecture.