QoS evaluation of multiservice applications over integrated satellite-terrestrial networks

This paper presents the QoS performance evaluation studies of IP over integrated terrestrial and Next Generation Satellite Network (NGSN) for HTTP web, file transfer, video streaming and VoIP applications. We compare the QoS parameters (e.g. delay, loss ratio and throughput) of the multiservice applications over Ka-Sat like satellite and the ITU-R standard Hypothetical Reference Digital Path (HRDP). We model the multiservice applications with multiple connections, different files sizes and connection durations variations. We simulate the network scenario with error model for the transmission loss environment using NS-2. A Differentiated Services (Diffserv) queue interface is used in the terrestrial network to regulate and differentiate the traffic flows while a priority queue is used as the satellite on-board-processing unit (OBP). The results showed a better top-down comparison of the QoS parameters involved in each application service across GEO satellite and the standard terrestrial digital data link.