An Architecture for Internet Service via Broadband Satellite Networks

High bandwidth satellites offer the promise of a rapidly deployable communication infrastructure with a natural support for mobility. However, many used versions of the Transmission Control Protocol perform poorly over satellite links, and this presents an obstacle to the deployment of such systems. We present an architecture that overcomes these problems and allows easy integration of heterogeneous networks into the larger Internet. We also present some results from our initial implementation, which uses TCP connection splitting to improve TCP performance over satellite links.