On the downlink throughput of a broadband LEO satellite network with hopping beams

In this letter, we analyze the throughput of the downlink segment of a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) global broadband satellite network. The downlink design u ses a set of hopping spot beams, each of which can be pointed independently to any fixed earth cell within the satellite footprint on a per-packet bas is, We present upper and lower bounds on the downlink throughput as a funct ion of the number of spot beams, the interference constraints, and the cove rage area, The bounds provide insight into the interrelationship between va rious downlink parameters in the design process. The results are verified t hrough Monte Carlo simulations.