VSAT-based satellite wide area networks

The performance of very small aperture terminal (VSAT)-based satellite wide area networks is evaluated. VSATs are used as gateways to interconnect local area networks through satellites to form a wide area network. The delay of the network, which is the time needed to send a packet from a station in the source LAN to a station in the destination LAN, is analyzed. Several access protocols are considered for comparison. It is observed through numerical examples that time division multiple access (TDMA) on the uplink and time division multiplexing (TDM) broadcast on the downlink offer the best delay performance.<
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