Reliable satellite multicast with assistance of terrestrial communications

Satellite networks can distribute data to a large number of receivers. Traditional automatic repeat request (ARQ) requires retransmission until all receivers obtain the correct packets. If the packet error rate is high on the satellite links, retransmissions consume a lot of satellite bandwidth and delay is large. This paper proposes a new method to correct the erroneous or lost packets through terrestrial communications, which reduces retransmission via satellite links. Two topologies are proposed to minimize terrestrial communications. Analytical results demonstrate that a ring model has better performance between the two proposed topologies.