Adding Intelligence to Internet
Satellites have been used for years to provide communication
network links. Historically, the use of satellites in the Internet can be
divided into two generations. In the first generation, satellites were simply
used to provide commodity links (e.g., T1) between countries. Internet Protocol
(IP) routers were attached to the link endpoints to use the links as single-hop
alternatives to multiple terrestrial hops. Two characteristics marked these
first-generation systems: they had limited bandwidth, and they had large
latencies that were due to the propagation delay to the high orbit position of
a geosynchronous satellite.
In the second generation of systems now appearing,
intelligence is added at the satellite link endpoints to overcome these
characteristics. This intelligence is used as the basis for a system for
providing Internet access engineered using a collection or fleet of satellites,
rather than operating single satellite channels in isolation. Examples of
intelligent control of a fleet include monitoring which documents are delivered
over the system to make decisions adaptively on how to schedule satellite time;
dynamically creating multicast groups based on monitored data to conserve
satellite bandwidth; caching documents at all satellite channel endpoints; and
anticipating user demands to hide latency.
This paper examines several key questions arising in the
design of a satellite-based system:
* Can international Internet access using a geosynchronous
satellite be competitive with today's terrestrial networks?
* What elements constitute an "intelligent
control" for a satellite-based Internet link?
*What are the design issues that are critical to the
efficient use of satellite channels?
The paper is organized as follows. The next section, Section
2, examines the above questions in enumerating principles for second-generation
satellite delivery systems. Section 3 presents a case study of the Internet
Delivery System (IDS), which is currently undergoing worldwide field trials.
You can download Adding Intelligence to Internet seminar abstract from here.
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