A Gateway Architecture for IP Satellite Networks with Dynamic Resource Management and DiffServ QoS Provision

IP satellite networks are gaining a considerable interest mainly due to their ability to deliver high bandwidth services to nation-wide areas. However some difficulties still exist to implement IP-based transport mechanisms on geostationary satellite networks (i.e. TCP-based protocols are affected by the large delay-bandwidth product). The satellite network architecture presented in this paper is designed to provide a complete QoS support for IP traffic based on the DS paradigm, while minimizing the waste of the valuable satellite resource. The proposed technique operates on two time scales: a short-term reaction compensates fast traffic variations by an appropriate scheduling while a medium term resource allocation mechanism reduces the wasted bandwidth.