Two approaches to managing satellite bandwidth that have been in use for decades are Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) and Demand Assigned Multiple Access (DAMA). TDMA and DAMA are certainly well suited for certain applications. TDMA works well in a low data rate transactional environment, and for STAR networks with a very large number of remotes. DAMA is an appropriate fit for full mesh telephony networks. However, the rapid adoption of IP as a transport protocol for telecommunications networks has created a need for a satellite access scheme that that is cost effective and works efficiently in an IP environment. VSAT systems providers have adapted TDMA and DAMA for IP transport over satellite, but with limited success, particularly in multiple application, high throughput environments.

LinkSat has a new approach to solving the bandwidth management problem. It is a highly innovative solution called Scanned Channel Assigned Networking (SCAN). Conceptually, SCAN combines the qualities of both DAMA and TDMA under one common control mechanism that uses spectral analysis at the remote site (or access terminal) to track carrier activity in a pre-determined segment of satellite bandwidth. The actual carrier sense and collision avoidance works more like Carrier Sense Multiple Access- Collision Detection (CSMA-CD). The major difference between SCAN and CSMA-CD is that SCAN works in an environment with multiple carriers operating simultaneously over a satellite frequency band.