Introduction Special Issue on DVB‐RCS2

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONDVB-RCS is really the first and only broadband satellite communications standard. With workstarted already in 1998 and the first version approved in the DVB project already in 1999—10years ago—we are already talking of a mature technical specification. At the time the focus wason ATM to the desktop, Ka-band systems and large low-earth-orbit satellite constellations; orat least a lot of the community interest; and systems were proposed with several hundredsatellites. In ETSI there were two alternative specifications published at the time for mobilesatellite services based on GSM; these were the so-called GMR-1 and GMR-2 specification—both basically connected to one system each and one (or a few) vendors each.But, at the time there was also an increasing focus on standards. ETSI had just called forexperts to the Broadband Satellite Multimedia Specialist Task Force—STF BSM, and as a resultof this work established the BSM Work Group. ETSI was also the focus for the regulatory-oriented telecommunications specifications—the so-called ‘harmonized standards’ that describea way—in practice the only practical way—satellite terminals (or other telecommunicationsterminals) could comply with the new RTTEthus, the amountofnoise one could allow intoother bands or orbital locations. Article 3.2 of the RTT&E directive also had a clause stating thatwhile standards were not mandatory, stated that the communications interface should bepublished. While some argued that this meant the input and output interfaces—could both be IPfor instance—others believed that it was the air interface such as the GSM system that wasmaking world-wide success at the time (and still is). Whatever one might have believed—the factremains that DVB-RCS is just such an interface and it is published.At that time, a decade or so ago, there was also a major interest in the 2.5GHz of Ka-bandspectrum that was being made available for satellites. While not all of it would be for userterminals, some was reserved, for example, up- and downlink from gateways, it was still considered