Hybrid Terrestrial-Satellite DVB/IP Infrastructure in Overlay Constellations for Triple-Play Services Access in Rural Areas

Abstract

This paper discusses the convergence of digital broadcasting and Internet technologies, by elaborating on the design, implementation, and performance evaluation of a hybrid terrestrial/satellite networking infrastructure, enabling triple-play services access in rural areas. At local/district level, the paper proposes the exploitation of DVB-T platforms in regenerative configurations for creating terrestrial DVB/IP backhaul between the core backbone (in urban areas) and a number of intermediate communication nodes distributed within the DVB-T broadcasting footprint (in rural areas). In this way, triple play services that are available at the core backbone, are transferred via the regenerative DVB-T/IP backhaul to the entire district and can be accessed by rural users via the corresponding intermediate node. On the other hand, at regional/national level, the paper proposes the exploitation of a satellite interactive digital video broadcasting platform (DVB S2/RCS) as an overlay network that interconnects the regenerative DVB-T/IP platforms, as well as individual users, and services providers, to each other. Performance of the proposed hybrid terrestrial/satellite networking environment is validated through experimental tests that were conducted under real transmission/reception conditions (for the terrestrial segment) and via simulation experiments (for the satellite segment) at a prototype network infrastructure.

Evaluation of hybrid terrestrial-satellite suburban wireless mesh backhauls for LTE networks

“…For instance, [17] proposes a hybrid network architecture at the RAN segment, where the satellite channel is offered as an alternative access interfaces for the mobile user. Authors from [18], Similarly in [13], a satellite network is used to transport the backhauled traffic by a terrestrial wireless mesh network for the purpose of Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR) services. The BATS projects [12], proposes to use an hybrid architecture but for the case of complementing fixed access services, such as ADSL, in rural environment.…”