There has been a great advance in the area of satellite communications and networks since the publication of the first edition of this book in 2005. Many satellites have been developed dedicated for broadband Internet, broadcasting and broadband communications with large capacity and high quality comparable to terrestrial networks.
Internet and mobile networks have had many new developments which is changing the ways we study, work and live, as well as the ways our business and society operate. It is clear now that all networks are evolving towards an all-IP solution, including telecommunication, mobile, Internet and broadcasting.
It is also clear that satellites still play an important role to complement these networks and support the existing and future services and applications. Satellite networking is a special and important topic, together with other networking technologies in recent years. Due to the nature of satellite links (long propagation delay, relatively high bit error rate and limited bandwidth in comparison with terrestrial links, particularly optical links), it is useful to understand the impact of satellites on standard network protocols and network design as well as their roles and benefits.
Satellite networking has evolved significantly since the first telecommunications satellite, from telephone and broadcast to broadband and Internet networks. The evolution has also been reflected in research and development, including recent studies of onboard processing, onboard switching and onboard IP routing. There is also continuous research in satellite communications and networks, including resource management, security and quality of service, multicast, video conference and broadband satellite access to the Internet.
We have also seen the development of a new generation of standards such as DVB-S2, DVB-RCS2, IPv6 and 4G mobile networks. Satellites should be able to inter-network with these new networks and their services.
There are always many practical constraints to trade-off for an optimal solution, such as cost, complexity, technologies and efficiency of space and ground segments in design, implementation and operation.
Therefore, I have tried to keep these in mind while writing the second edition of this book. Given the large amount of information, fast development of the topic and limited space and my knowledge, it is difficult to include all of them in detail. Hence, I just focus on principles and protocol aspects and update the materials to the best of my knowledge.
In addition to the main texts, I have also tried to update all the references as much as I can to reflect new developments and the publication of new standards.
The book also intends to help readers to understand the seamless integration between satellite and terrestrial networks and to achieve a common understanding of different network protocols and technologies, and the convergence of future network protocols, technologies, services and applications as well as user terminals.
This book covers the following topics:
The importance of fundamental concepts and principles for satellite networking and the role satellites will play in future networks can never be overemphasised. Readers who wish to gain further details on some of the relevant topics are directed to the further reading sections at the end of each chapter.
Prof. Zhili Sun
University of Surrey, UK
8 September 2013