UNIC - UNIversal satellite home Connection

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For other uses, see Unic (disambiguation).

UNIC
UNIversal satellite home Connection

Keywords	Triple Play, bidirectional satellite, digital divide
Funding agency	European Union
Project type	STReP
Reference
Objective
Participants	Thales Alenia Space, Eutelsat SA, MBI, RAI, University of Pisa, Motorola, Wind, CNES, University College London,
Budget	Overall: Funding:
Duration	February 2006 - July 2008
Web site	http://www.unic-project.org

UNIC (UNIversal satellite home Connection) is a Specific Targeted Research Project (STReP) sponsored under European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme. The project is coordinated by Thales Alenia Space.

1 Objective
2 Breaking the digital divide barrier
3 UNIC architecture
4 Consortium
5 External links

[edit] Objective

The UNIC project aims at developing an end-to-end scientific test bed for the creation, optimization and validation of new broadband interactive TV-centric services delivered over low-cost 2-way satellite to actual end-users in the home. Combining satellite technology for Direct-To-the-Home (DTH) TV-services with Internet access and IP based services, including Voice over IP (VoIP), can provide an effective alternative to traditional access methods (cable networks) and newcomers (IPTV/TelcoTV and Digital Terrestrial TV).

[edit] Breaking the digital divide barrier

It is known that satellite connection provides the best and quickest solution to reduce the digital divide in less-favored areas, which has been considered as a major issue in the diffusion of broadband access. The inherent advantages of satellite communications, such as unlimited access within the satellite footprint, and massive downlink broadcast capacity can be exploited to provide bundled services to those customers that were previously excluded from traditional access choices (rural areas in well-developed countries and large areas with limited terrestrial network infrastructure in developing countries). The UNIC project employs a two-way satellite architecture.

[edit] UNIC architecture

The UNIC platform employs DVB-S2 and DVB-RCS technologies in the forward and the return link, respectively. The flexible framing structure of DVB-S2 and the adoption of the Adaptive Coding & Modulation (ACM) functionality allow optimizing the transmission parameters for each individual user on a frame-by-frame basis, dependant on path conditions and required QoS, under closed-loop control via the satellite return channel. The result is an efficient exploitation of the satellite resources so as to reduce the bandwidth demand.