Interference mitigation for satellite-based direct to cellular communications

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by a processing system including at least one processor of a communication satellite, cause the processing system to perform operations, the operations comprising:

• obtaining at least one communication from at least one of:
• a wireless endpoint device or a terrestrial cellular base station that indicates a presence of the terrestrial cellular base station;
• identifying, based upon the at least one communication, that a first communication coverage zone of the terrestrial cellular base station is within a second communication coverage zone of the communication satellite;
• determining, in response to identifying that the first communication coverage zone of the terrestrial cellular base station is within the second communication coverage zone of the communication satellite, a potential interference between the communication satellite and the terrestrial cellular base station;
• and
• applying a transmission beam coverage hole co-located with the first communication coverage zone of the terrestrial cellular base station, in response to the determining of the potential interference between the communication satellite and the terrestrial cellular base station.

An apparatus comprising:

• a processing system including at least one processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by the processing system when deployed in a communication satellite, cause the processing system to perform operations, the operations comprising:
• obtaining at least one communication from at least one of:
• a wireless endpoint device or a terrestrial cellular base station that indicates a presence of the terrestrial cellular base station;
• identifying, based upon the at least one communication, that a first communication coverage zone of the terrestrial cellular base station is within a second communication coverage zone of the communication satellite;
• determining, in response to identifying that the first communication coverage zone of the terrestrial cellular base station is within the second communication coverage zone of the communication satellite, a potential interference between the communication satellite and the terrestrial cellular base station;
• and
• applying a transmission beam coverage hole co-located with the first communication coverage zone of the terrestrial cellular base station, in response to the determining of the potential interference between the communication satellite and the terrestrial cellular base station.