A field trial was conducted to evaluate the technical performance of land mobile message communication in different environments. The OmniTRACS system and the Ku-band JCSAT satellite were utilized as the mobile communications system and the satellite, respectively. The trial took place in September 1990 at different areas in Japan. Data collected correspond to about 65 hours of operation, during which a large number of messages were sent via the satellite. Two land mobile terminals operated simultaneously, each terminal having a function of generating messages automatically which simulates a large volume of traffic corresponding to about 50 terminals. Thus, the system was evaluated under the condition that 100 mobile terminals were in operation. Obtained data have been analyzed with a particular focus on the message transmission correlating with actual environments. The analysis was done by classifying environments into five categories: overall condition, type of roads, terrain, areas and weather conditions. The average transmission count per message experienced under all conditions is equal to 1.432 for forward messages transmitted from the hub station to mobiles, and 1.157 for return messages transmitted from mobiles to the hub station. With respect to the classification by the type of roads, for enample it becomes obvious that the performance is generally good except along roads of North-South orientation through dense urban areas. It is concluded that the message communications from/to mobiles are feasible in a wide range of environments, with the performance of success essentially depending on the visibility of satellite.

Recently there has been an enormous growth in the popularity of the Internet. The provisions of access to the Internet will be one of the principal services of the next generation of access networks. In order to provide cost-effective Internet access over ATM-based broadband access networks, the introduction of an available bit rate (ABR) service class is a promising solution. This paper describes our analysis of ABR behavior over ATM-based access networks focusing on explicit-rate-based rate controls and their round-trip time effects. We also describe the hardware implementation of the ABR-based rate controls.