A TWO-WAY INTERACTIVE BROADBAND SATELLITE ARCHITECTURE TO BREAK THE DIGITAL DIVIDE BARRIER

This paper presents a newly low-cost satellite architecture for the distribution of new broadband interactive TV-centric services to actual end-users in the home. The 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 TV-Centric services, the required QoS and the relevant system architecture. 1