Internet via Satellite: GEO vs. LEO, OpenVPN vs. Wireguard, and CUBIC vs. BBR

Deutschmann J, Jahandar S, Hielscher KS, German R (2023)

Publication Type: Conference contribution

Publication year: 2023

Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery

City/Town: New York

Pages Range: 19–24

Conference Proceedings Title: Proceedings of the 1st ACM MobiCom Workshop on Satellite Networking and Computing

Event location: Madrid ES

ISBN: 9798400703355

DOI: 10.1145/3614454.3622998

Abstract

Geostationary (GEO) satellite communication achieves high data rates but relies on Performance Enhancing Proxies to mitigate the negative effects of high latency paths. However, such proxies cannot be applied if the transport protocol headers are encrypted, as is the case for VPNs. Recently, there has been an enormous momentum towards low Earth orbit megaconstellations, with Starlink currently being the largest satellite constellation ever deployed. In this paper, we compare two GEO systems with the Starlink megaconstallation, and unencrypted TCP with two different VPN networks: OpenVPN and Wireguard. The impact of congestion control algorithms is shown by a comparison of BBR and CUBIC. Traffic generation is done with TCP bulk data transfers.

Results confirm that GEO systems achieve their configured link rate if PEPs can be applied. Without PEPs, the convergence towards the path capacity takes a considerable amount of time (~10 s) and goodput of a single flow is limited (~30 Mbit/s) due to default buffer sizes. Starlink achieves high data rates (~200 Mbit/s in forward link, ~25 Mbit/s in return link), and compared to GEO systems, has much lower latencies. Wireguard usually performs better than OpenVPN, and BBR usually performs better than CUBIC. A non-optimal combination is Starlink with OpenVPN and CUBIC, which reaches a goodput of only ~50 Mbit/s for a single flow in the forward link.

Authors with CRIS profile

Jörg Deutschmann Computer Science 7 (Computer Networks and Communication Systems) Kai-Steffen Hielscher Computer Science 7 (Computer Networks and Communication Systems) Reinhard German Computer Science 7 (Computer Networks and Communication Systems)

Related research project(s)

New protocols for faster Internet via satellite (QUICSAT) Oct. 1, 2021 - Sept. 30, 2024

How to cite

APA:

Deutschmann, J., Jahandar, S., Hielscher, K.-S., & German, R. (2023). Internet via Satellite: GEO vs. LEO, OpenVPN vs. Wireguard, and CUBIC vs. BBR. In Proceedings of the 1st ACM MobiCom Workshop on Satellite Networking and Computing (pp. 19–24). Madrid, ES: New York: Association for Computing Machinery.

MLA:

Deutschmann, Jörg, et al. "Internet via Satellite: GEO vs. LEO, OpenVPN vs. Wireguard, and CUBIC vs. BBR." Proceedings of the SatCom '23: 1st ACM MobiCom Workshop on Satellite Networking and Computing, Madrid New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 2023. 19–24.

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