Abstract-This paper discusses system and technology aspects crucial to the development of satellite communications at Ka band (20-30 GHz) and beyond. It surveys the evolution of Ka band geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite communications until the present stage of development of systems for direct-to-user (DTU) provision of interactive multimedia services worldwide. Then it discusses the attenuation problem and main technical issues of this new technology. Finally, it provides a view on experiments and technological developments at extremely highfrequency (EHF) bands.
Cellular systems are gaining wide acceptance. In Europe the GSM system is expected to provide service to more than 10 million users by the year 2000. Assuming that a demand for additional services at 64 kbit/s or so will not easily be satisfied either by the present GSM system or by advanced satellite systems at L‐band, this paper proposes a new satellite system at EHF (40150 GHz) to be integrated at the end of the decade with the GSM system or its descendants. First, the paper describes the main obstacles for the new system, in terms of channel characteristics and technology developments, and then illustrates a preliminary system design to show the technical feasibility in the proposed ten years time scale.
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