The inherent broadcast capabilities of satellites make them an attractive solution for the delivery of multimedia services to mobile users in third generation (3G) networks. Reliable delivery of content over a hostile land-mobile satellite channel is one of the key technical system requirements that can be addressed at different protocol layers. In this paper, we focus our attention on some of the mechanisms which can provide partial reliability: the packet-level forward error correction (PLFEC) technique in radio access network (RAN), different interleaving depths at physical layer (inter frame) and power allocation in the satellite radio interface. We rely on an end-to-end simulation platform in order to assess the performance gain achieved by these mechanisms separately, and provide clear indications for the achievable benefits at system level when some of these mechanisms act in co-ordination rather than in isolation. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.