Time-division Multiple Access (TDMA)

Time-division multiple access in satellite communications is a mechanism for sharing a channel among a number of satellite communications users, whereby each user has access to the whole channel bandwidth for a small period of time (a time slot). The difference between time-division multiplexing (TDM) and TDMA is that time-division multiplexing requires users to be collocated to be multiplexed into the channel. In that regard, TDMA can be considered as a remote multiplexing technology. The use of TDMA in satellite communications places unique requirements for synchronisation on transmitters.