Feasibility Study of a HSPA Backhauling over Satellite for Crisis Management

The present paper studies the performance of a high-speed third- generation (3.5G) networking technology, HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), for delivering crisis management and emergency e-health applications under urgent situations via satellite backhauling. The performance of a joint network comprised by wireless sensors, the 3.5G and satellite networks is a critical factor for successful development of emergency services perceived by end-users during a disaster situation. In this paper, we propose an emergency system architecture for performance assessment based on the joint transmission of voice, real-time video, vital data and healthcare records file transfer between the disaster-site and the safe-site. Three scenarios were concerned in terms of real-time, non-real- time and emergency applications in random locations, where no other system but 3.5G is available in case of crisis or disaster. The accomplishment of quality of service (QoS) was explored through a step-by-step improvement of the HSPA and satellite system´s parameters, attributing the network system for best performance in the context of the desired emergency services.