Gateway handover implications on transport layer performance in Terabit satellite networks

Next-generation satellite systems are expected to provide an overall capacity of Tbit/s, whereby the use of higher frequency bands (e.g., Q, V, or W) will be required. In this regard, the satellite network will implement gateway (GW) diversity schemes and handover techniques to cope with the cases where GW feeder links experience outage due to weather-induced channel degradations. The efficient use of the available satellite capacity calls for multi-link transmission paradigms, which are currently not supported by TCP, but can be enabled by the more recent MP-TCP protocol that is based on a multi-homing approach. Hence, this paper explores the benefits achieved by adopting MP-TCP in a smart GW diversity scenario, showing that this technique allows a smooth support of GW handover events.