Adaptable traffic management in satellite networks

Abstract

An attractive challenge in the global communications scenario is the effective transmission of real-time bursty traffic over integrated terrestrial-satellite links. In this paper, the study focuses on the cited issue. In early studies we proposed a solution based on a connection admission control (CAC) scheme, coupled with a traffic resource management (TRM) functionality onboard. In the present work, the traffic handling strategy is complemented with a re-shaping module in the satellite terminal. The additional functionality shows outstanding effectiveness in improving CAC-TRM performance, especially when the long propagation delay across the satellite link prevents the CAC itself to guarantee the target QoS to certain types of traffic. By adopting an intelligent shaping at the satellite terminal the full effectiveness in managing system resources and in guaranteeing QoS is recovered, under a wide range of loading conditions and offered traffic profiles. The resulting policy is adaptable, in the sense that it can be dynamically adapted to the traffic profile.