Theatre in the Sky: a ubiquitous broadband multimedia-on-demand service over a novel constellation composed of quasi-geostationary satellites

To meet an ever-growing demand for wideband multimedia services and electronic connectivity across the world, development of ubiquitous broadband multimedia systems is gaining a tremendous interest at both commercial and academic levels. Satellite networks will play an indispensable role in the deployment of such systems. A significant number of satellite communication constellations have been thus proposed using Geostationary (GEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), or Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. These constellations, however, either require a potential number of satellites or are unable to provide data transmission with high elevation angles. This paper proposes a new satellite constellation composed of Quasi-GeoStationary Orbit (Quasi-GSO) satellites. The main advantage of the constellation is in its ability to provide global coverage with a significantly small number of satellites while, at the same time, maintaining high elevation angles. Based on a combination of this Quasi-GSO satellites constellation and terrestrial networks, the paper proposes also an architecture for building a global, large-scale, and efficient Video-on-Demand (VoD) system. The entire architecture is referred to as a ‘Theatre in the Sky’. Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.