Scalable Proportional Bandwidth Allocation in Satellite Networks

Future satellite communication systems proposed use geosynchronous (GEO) satellites, medium earth orbit (MEO), and low earth orbit (LEO) constellations with fast packet switching and quality of service (QoS) provisioning. In this paper, we present broadband GEO, MEO and LEO satellite network QoS models and simulated performance results. This paper proposes a new method of bandwidth allocation during congestion, called the proportional allocation of bandwidth (PAB). Traditionally, under congestion bandwidth has been allocated using max-min fairness. PAB considers the situation where the subscribed information rate varies from one flow to another, based on their origin. In PAB, during congestion all flows get a share of available bandwidth, which is in proportion to their subscribed information rate. We suggest a method for implementing this without signaling and without storing per-flow state, based on the principles of differentiated services – diffserv. We show by simulation that it is possible to obtain proportional bandwidth allocation without per-flow state storing and signaling.