A Survey of Congestion Control Techniques and Data Link Protocols in Satellite Networks

TL;DR

This survey reviews congestion control methods and data link protocols in satellite networks, highlighting challenges due to long delays and traffic burstiness, and discusses various solutions to improve network performance.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of existing congestion control techniques and data link protocols tailored for satellite networks, emphasizing their design challenges and proposed solutions.

Findings

Long propagation delays significantly impact congestion control effectiveness.

Traffic burstiness necessitates specialized data link protocols.

Various solutions have been proposed to address satellite network constraints.

Abstract

Satellite communication systems are the means of realizing a global broadband integrated services digital network. Due to the statistical nature of the integrated services traffic, the resulting rate fluctuations and burstiness render congestion control a complicated, yet indispensable function. The long propagation delay of the earth-satellite link further imposes severe demands and constraints on the congestion control schemes, as well as the media access control techniques and retransmission protocols that can be employed in a satellite network. The problems in designing satellite network protocols, as well as some of the solutions proposed to tackle these problems, will be the primary focus of this survey.