Measuring the Satellite Links of LEO Networks

Speaker: Jianping Pan, Professor, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Date: Tuesday, 25 June 2024

Abstract: Low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite networks have become very popular in recent years, exemplified by Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper and Telesat, due to the dramatically reduced launch cost and increased demand for connectivity anytime, anywhere. After an exploration of Starlink access, core and backbone networks, in this talk we focus on the satellite access network (SAN) of Starlink around the world. In particular, we measure the access performance in terms of one-way delay and round-trip time from user terminal (UT) to ground station (GS) and point-of-presence (PoP), both inside-out and outside-in, and even on inactive dishes. It reveals the unique characteristics of Starlink SAN in terms of satellite-GS scheduling, media access control and user contention, and sheds light on the challenges and opportunities for network protocols and applications. We will also compare two leading SAN networks, i.e., Starlink and OneWeb, according to their targeted customer bases and corresponding network design architecture and performance, as well as highlighting a few emerging testbeds.

Bio: Dr Jianping Pan is a professor of computer science at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He received his Bachelor's and PhD degrees in computer science from Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, and he did his postdoctoral research at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He also worked at Fujitsu Labs and NTT Labs. His area of specialization is computer networks and distributed systems, and his current research interests include protocols for advanced networking, performance analysis of networked systems, and applied network security. He received IEICE Best Paper Award in 2009, Telecommunications Advancement Foundation's Telesys Award in 2010, WCSP 2011 Best Paper Award, IEEE Globecom 2011 Best Paper Award, JSPS Invitation Fellowship in 2012, IEEE ICC 2013 Best Paper Award, NSERC DAS Award in 2016, IEEE ICDCS 2021 Best Poster Award and DND/NSERC DGS Award in 2021, and has been serving on the technical program committees of major computer communications and networking conferences including IEEE INFOCOM, ICC, Globecom, WCNC and CCNC. He was the Ad Hoc and Sensor Networking Symposium Co-Chair of IEEE Globecom 2012 and an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology. He is a senior member of the ACM and Fellow of the IEEE.