The main application scenario of the UNIC system is a remote village not served by terrestrial broadband infrastructures (i.e. ADSL, WiMax,...). The UNIC system is therefore designed to provide (i) broadband connectivity  (triple play) to the homes, via a bi-directional collective satellite gateway (e.g., serving a village, a group of houses, a large multi-storey building,...), and (ii) conventional TV/HDTV services via Direct-to-Home (DTH) reception. The user STB, allowing seamless access to the various services independently from their origin/transport infrastructure, is typically an hybrid DVB and IP box connected:

• to the collective gateway trough a wired or wireless local broadband network (for interactive services),
• to the DTH receiving antenna through the home cable network (for TV/HDTV services)

The user/home segment, in addition to the fixed equipment (STB, TV/HDTV monitor,..) , includes also a variety of handheld electronic devices  (mobile phones, PDAs,...). Alternative scenarios are also considered, implying different implementations of sub-systems in the collective gateway and in the user STB.
In order to fulfil these system requirements, the UNIC end-to-end system is composed of the following segments