Integration of the ORBCOMM satellite network with the GSM Short Message Service

This paper deals with the interworking between the GSM Short Message Service (SMS) and the ORBCOMM satellite system. This latter is a global coverage satellite system including 36 LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellites. In particular, the paper deals with the so‐called INTERGO service which permits the sending of messages from the standard GSM terminals (GSM Mobile Stations (MSs)) to the ORBOCOMM terminals (ORBCOMM Subscriber Communicators (SCs)) and vice versa. Moreover, an enhanced version of the INTERGO service, referred to as “INTERGO+”, allows, in case of GSM terrestrial segment unavailability, the automatic rerouting, via the ORBCOMM satellite network, of the GSM Short Messages addressed towards Dual‐Mode users (GSM+ORBCOMM).

The design of the so‐called ORBCOMM SMSCE (Short Message Service Center Extension), which is the core of the INTERGO application, is presented. This entity is a gateway, which interfaces the GSM network with the ORBCOMM system using the Internet as a communication bridge. This paper shows that such equipment can be easily implemented without entailing any modification either in the GSM or in the ORBCOMM networks; the main importance of this paper lies in the fact that the underlying approach can also be applied for the interconnection of other pairs of networks.