Heterogeneous traffic management in satellite multi-layered networks

A multi-tier cellular system including a satellite coverage layer overlapping the terrestrial segment is examined. In particular, a policy for handling originating and hand-off connections on the air-interface is proposed. Its behaviour is studied when in the presence of heterogeneous traffic, composed of symmetric and asymmetric data, plus conventional voice telephony. System resources and algorithm parameters are tuned to this specific traffic composition. The presence of users with different mobility profiles is also considered. Optimal resource planning for the satellite uplink and downlink, and partial restrictions on the number of terrestrial channels accessible by data sources are the main research topics addressed in this paper.