The Economics and Performance of Satellite Packet Switching

The economics and performance of packet-switched satellite systems operating in a broadcast mode are studied and compared to landline-based systems similar to the ARPANET. The fixed-packet length inefficiencies and the satellite channel utilization of the satellite systems are presented as functions of the message length distribution, the number of earth stations, the average message delay, and the average number of messages generated at each earth station. Some of the economic factors in the design of packetswitched satellite networks are discussed, including hardware costs as a function of technology and system performance. Satellite network configurations with or without backhaul facilities are compared and it is concluded that configurations using backhaul facilities consisting of two 30 mile private leased lines (each 50 kbits/s) are more expensive. Parameters and estimated costs of satellite system configurations are presented and an engineering estimate of the cost function for satellite packet-switched networks is derived and presented in the form of long range average cost curves. Economies of scale with respect to network traffic and diseconomies of scale with respect to the number of network earth stations are found to be present.