| CPC H04B 7/18589 (2013.01) [H04B 7/18515 (2013.01); H04B 7/18573 (2013.01); H04B 7/195 (2013.01); H04L 27/2603 (2021.01); H04W 72/0453 (2013.01); H04W 88/16 (2013.01)] | 19 Claims |

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1. A satellite communication system comprising:
a user terminal with a user terminal physical layer interface;
a satellite gateway with a gateway physical layer interface connected to a terrestrial network;
an air interface for maintaining connectivity between the user terminal physical layer interface and the gateway physical layer interface through a satellite, wherein the air interface includes:
a forward link for communicating from the satellite gateway to the user terminal;
a return link for communicating from the user terminal to the satellite gateway;
wherein the forward link includes a frame with a plurality of sub-frames, the frame being aligned with a global positioning pulse signal from the satellite; and
wherein the plurality of sub-frames include a basic down link map (Basic DLMAP) with a downlink index, wherein the downlink index includes an indication for a number of DLMAPS included in a sub-frame, and a uplink map index that includes an indication whether the sub-frame includes an uplink map.
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