The University of British Columbia

To enhance the performance of broadband satellite networks, the application characteristics should be considered in the design of the medium access control (MAC) protocol. With the rapid expansion of Internet applications and the attractiveness of high speed Internet access via broadband satellite networks, it is important to take into account the self-similar nature of Internet traffic in MAC protocol designs. This paper presents a novel PRedictive Demand Assignment Multiple Access (PRDAMA) protocol for packet communications over broadband satellite networks. PRDAMA allocates bandwidth resources by estimating the positive varying trend of the Internet traffic to facilitate prediction of the resource requirements of the Earth stations. Simulation results demonstrate that PRDAMA achieves a lower delay compared with other DAMA protocols due to its accurate traffic prediction. The influence of different traffic models on the protocol performance is also investigated.