A dynamic service level negotiation mechanism for QoS provisioning in NGEO satellite networks

Satellite communication systems exhibit important and unique features that qualify them to be an integral part of a global ubiquitous information system. Given the universality of the Internet Protocol (IP), traffic over satellite network is expected to be all IP. Success of these all-IP satellite systems depends on their abilities to guarantee QoS. QoS provisioning has been a hot topic in terrestrial wired networks. It has been, however, highly overlooked in wireless networks. An efficient QoS provisioning in wireless networks in general, and in satellite networks in particular, can be possible only with the development of new schemes that are able to dynamically (re)negotiate service levels in an adaptive manner to changes in network conditions upon handoff occurrences. This paper surveys major dynamic service level negotiation schemes proposed for terrestrial wireless networks and discusses their limitations when applied to satellite networks. As a solution, a dynamic service level negotiation scheme specifically tailored to satellite networks is portrayed. Comparison of the proposed scheme to other dynamic negotiation approaches, via a qualitative and quantitative analysis, is also presented.