The throughput of a system is a measure of the capacity of the system. All Mobile satellite systems now use digital transmission and hence data rate is a common means of categorization.
Low bit rate (A few bps to 1 kbps) -paging,message transfer.
Medium bit rate (1 to 10 kbps) - voice
High bit rate (10 to 64 kbps) - voice,multimedia
Broadband(> 64 kbps) -multimedia.
