TCP/IP performance over satellite and HAP integrated systems

In this paper, some HAP-satellite integrated architectures for the provision of broadband connectivity to homes are presented. In these architectures, the HAP is exploited as an intermediate node between the ground terminal and the satellite. By splitting the connection, several advantages can be achieved. In particular, the lower transmission delay between user and HAP renders more effective link layer error recovery mechanisms based on retransmissions (ARQ) to make the channel more reliable and to improve TCP/IP performance. Simulations of the described architecture have shown a gain in the order of 30% in terms of TCP throughput when the HAP is used to split the user terminal-satellite link.