Aspot beam, intelecommunications parlance, is asatellite signal that is specially concentrated inpower (i.e. sent by ahigh-gain antenna) so that it will cover only a limited geographic area on Earth. Spot beams are used so that onlyEarth stations in a particular intended reception area can properly receive the satellite signal.[1]
One notable example of the use of spot beams is ondirect broadcast satellite systems such asDirecTV andDish Network that deliver localbroadcasttelevision via satellite only to viewers in the part ofNorth America from which those terrestrial broadcast stations originate.
Spot beams allow satellites to transmit different data signals using the same frequency. Because satellites have a limited number of frequencies to use, the ability to re-use a frequency for different geographical locations (without different data interfering with each other at the receiver) allows for more local channels to be carried, since the same frequency can be used in several regions.