Satellite-Based Non-Terrestrial Networks in 5G: Insights and Challenges

Non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) will become an indispensable part of future wireless networks. Integration with terrestrial networks will provide new opportunities for both satellite and terrestrial telecommunication industries and therefore there is a need to harmonize them in a unified technological framework. Among different NTNs, low earth orbit (LEO) satellites have gained increasing attention in recent years and several companies have filed federal communication commission (FCC) proposals to deploy their LEO constellation in space. This is mainly due to several desired features such as large capacity and low latency. In addition, recent successful LEO network deployments such as Starlink have motivated other companies. In the past satellite and terrestrial wireless networks have been evolving separately but now they are joining forces to enhance coverage and connectivity experience in the future wireless networks. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is one of the dominating standardization bodies that is working on various technical aspects to provide ubiquitous access to the 5G networks with the aid of NTNs. Initial steps have been taken to adopt 5G state of the art technologies and concepts and harmonized them with the conditions met in non-terrestrial networks. In this article, we review some of the important technical considerations in 5G NTNs with emphasis on the radio access network (RAN) part and provide some simulation based results to assess the required modifications and shed light on the design considerations.