An enhanced L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) may include cellular telephone ground stations, and LDACS ground stations. In addition, the enhanced LDACS may also include a plurality of LDACS airborne stations, each configured to selectively communicate with either a corresponding LDACS ground station or a corresponding cellular telephone ground station based upon an altitude of the LDACS airborne station.

An enhanced L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) may include LDACS ground stations assigned to respective different ground communication networks; and LDACS airborne stations configured to communicate with selected ones of the LDACS ground stations based upon respective roaming agreements for the different ground communication networks. In addition, the system may include a network broker configured to authorize a connection between an LDACS airborne station and an LDACS ground station based upon a corresponding roaming agreement.

An enhanced L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) may include LDACS ground stations, and LDACS airborne stations. Each LDACS airborne station may be configured to communicate with the LDACS ground stations using at least one cellular network security feature. For example, the at least one cellular network security feature may include a Long-Term Evolution (LTE) security feature.

An enhanced L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) may include LDACS ground stations, and a LDACS airborne stations configured to communicate with the LDACS ground stations. The enhanced LDACS may also include a network controller configured to operate the LDACS ground stations and LDACS airborne stations at different transmission powers to define an LDACS underlay network and an LDACS overlay network. The LDACS underlay network may have a larger cell size than the LDACS overlay network. Portions of the LDACS underlay network may be installed prior in time to portions of the LDACS overlay network.

An enhanced L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) may include LDACS ground stations, and LDACS airborne stations configured to communicate with the LDACS ground stations. Each LDACS airborne station may be configured to collect respective routing metrics, and each LDACS airborne station may be selectively operable as at least one of a host and client. The enhanced LDACS may also include a peer-to-peer server configured to establish a mesh network topology from the LDACS airborne stations based upon the routing metrics, and selectively operate each LDACS airborne station as at least one of the host and client.

An enhanced L-band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) may include LDACS ground stations; and a LDACS airborne stations, each configured to communicate with the LDACS ground stations at a given class of service from among different classes of service. The enhanced LDACS may also include a network controller configured to operate the LDACS ground stations and LDACS airborne stations at the different user classes of service.

A mobile interactive satellite service includes a first satellite, a base station, and a ground station configured to provide respective and distinct first and second multicast content components to the first satellite and the base station. The first satellite communicates the first multicast content component in a first signal to a mobile device. The base station communicates the second multicast content component in a second signal to the mobile device, which can combine the received signals. For another embodiment, a mobile interactive service includes a mobile device, a first base station, a second base station, and a ground station configured to provide a first multicast content component to the first base station and a second multicast content component to the second base station. The first and second multicast content components are distinct, transmitted in respective first and second multicast signals and are combined by the mobile device.

Described herein are systems, devices, and methods that improve network communication on a high-latency network by using a low-latency network to manage return-link bandwidth. Embodiments of the systems described herein include a user terminal that is communicatively coupled to a high-latency network and a low-latency network. The user terminal is configured to communicate with a gateway routing device over the low-latency network. The user terminal requests return-link bandwidth and the gateway routing device provides a transmission schedule to the user terminal over the low-latency network. The user terminal can be configured to transmit a message over the high-latency network using the scheduled return-link bandwidth.

An earth station transmitter device is arranged for generating a set of data to be transmitted to an earth station receiver device of a satellite communication system. The earth station transmitter device comprises: encoding and modulation means for mapping a plurality of baseband frames; physical layer framing means arranged for inserting in front of each frame of encoded and modulated symbols; converter means for converting a super-frame preamble; super-frame generator means arranged to prepend a first subset of capacity units corresponding to the super-frame preamble to a second subset of capacity units of the plurality corresponding to the plurality of physical layer frames.

The present disclosure relates, in part, to non-terrestrial communication systems, and in some embodiments to the integration of terrestrial and non-terrestrial communication systems. Non-terrestrial communication systems can provide a more flexible communication system with extended wireless coverage range and enhanced service quality compared to conventional communication systems.