Study of the availability of satellite telecommunication links subject to attenuation by rain

A model for satellite telecommunication links subject to attenuation by rain is presented. Parameterized equations describe the joint probability density of the attenuations in the Earth-to-space and space-to-Earth paths. The correlation coefficient between the two marginal densities is a free parameter. Link availability is calculated by numerical integration of the joint density over the region of the plane that corresponds to satisfactory communications. The method is applied to the case of a network of low-capacity Earth stations that communicate through a satellite using frequency-division multiple access with a single channel per carrier (SCPC); and to a link where the entire bandwidth of the satellite transponder is occupied by a single carrier. The results show that the value of the correlation coefficient may be important in link design.