On Joint Satellite, Terrestrial, and Delay Tolerant Networks for Railroad Communications

The paper explores data delivery delays in next-generation railway communication networks with various configurations of terrestrial and satellite coverage (including mesh and delay-tolerant forwarding). It proposes a rough analytic estimation (with just two parameters: the total number of trains and the average number of their meetings) and computer simulation (based on realistic train schedules). This approach can serve as a preliminary groundwork for the technical and commercial choice of a preferred 5G railway link type on the stage of implementing: satellite (SatCom) or terrestrial (TerraNet), and assessing the feasibility of the necessary QoS.