Democratizing LEO Satellite Network Measurement
Liz Izhikevich, Manda Tran, Katherine Izhikevich, Gautam Akiwate,, Zakir Durumeric

TL;DR
This paper introduces HitchHiking, a novel method that enables widespread measurement of LEO satellite networks using existing Internet services, revealing new insights into their latency and routing complexity.
Contribution
HitchHiking democratizes LEO network measurement by leveraging Internet-exposed services, eliminating the need for specialized hardware, and enabling large-scale, accurate analysis.
Findings
Largest study of Starlink latency to date with over 2,400 users
Uncovered complex and unexpected latency patterns in LEO routing
HitchHiking outperforms prior measurement methods in coverage and accuracy
Abstract
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks are quickly gaining traction with promises of impressively low latency, high bandwidth, and global reach. However, the research community knows relatively little about their operation and performance in practice. The obscurity is largely due to the high barrier of entry for measuring LEO networks, which requires deploying specialized hardware or recruiting large numbers of satellite Internet customers. In this paper, we introduce HitchHiking, a methodology that democratizes global visibility into LEO satellite networks. HitchHiking builds on the observation that Internet-exposed services that use LEO Internet can reveal satellite network architecture and performance, bypassing the need for specialized hardware. We evaluate HitchHiking against ground truth measurements and prior methods, showing that it provides more coverage and accuracy. With…
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Taxonomy
TopicsSatellite Communication Systems
