Service providers typically receive and transmit broadband data over a fixed connection to end-user equipment. The speed or amount of data that a user receives will be limited due to various factors such as the capacity of the connection, the contention ratio, or simply because the user subscribes to a low speed service.
Certain satellite television providers also deliver broadband data by satellite transmission. A wired DSL connection provides the uplink in the conventional way but the entire downlink is by means of a satellite transmission. Only one satellite is employed for the downlink and the capacity is limited thereby restricting download speeds. Also, if the satellite fails, there is no downlink.
With video streaming and online gaming becoming increasingly popular, there exist disadvantages with such speed-limited services.
In many countries, digital terrestrial television (DTTV) is the norm or is becoming the norm for delivering terrestrial television services. Users typically have a DTTV set-top box connected to their television set. Users are often in-range of multiple DTTV transmitters each of which transmits television channels on encoded broadcast streams, or multiplexes.
The term broadband data in the context of this disclosure is intended to mean packetized data, typically encoded using the Internet Protocol (IP) or variants thereof. Fixed connections mean any connection between the user's premises and the Internet access point that is wired or cabled (generally termed “fixed-line” connections) and, also, fixed wireless connections which provide point-to-point (non-broadcast) connections. The term therefore covers Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and optical fibre connections. “xDSL” is sometimes used to refer to any of an increasing family of DSL technologies, but the term “DSL” will in general be used here.