S-Band Digital Multimedia Satellite Broadcasting Services for Personal & Mobile Users in Japan

World's first S-band satellite digital broadcasting services for personal and mobile users by use of 2.6GHz radio frequency band is planned to be launched in 2004 in Japan and also in Korea. The satellite is co-owned by Mobile Broadcasting Corporation in Japan and SK Telecom in Korea. This service consists of a large number of various multimedia broadcasting programs such as high quality digital audio programs and video programs and is able to be received small portable receivers and vehicular at any time and anywhere Nation-wide. In order to realize this with Me service, a geostationary satellite high power transponders and a high gain 12-m large deployable antenna is used. Terrestrial repeaters, called Gap Fillers, which transmit broadcasting signal to the areas where the satellite signal is blocked by obstacles, are also used in urban areas. The System E registered in ITU has been applied to this satellite broadcasting system, which has employed CDM (Code Division Multiplex) technology and RAKE receivers for effective utilization of spectrum as well as mitigation of multi-path fading. The satellite, MBSAT, has been launched successfully by Atlas-IIIA and variety verification tests have been carried out to evaluate the total system performance. In this paper, recent development status of both the system and services is described.