Traffic Models for Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Networks

We examine the question of how to model HSTN traffic for network dimensioning and performance prediction, and in particular, how far ahead into the future a traffic model can be expected to accurately function. We investigate these issues by directly comparing four of the most likely candidate statistical distributions—the exponential, log-normal, Weibull and Pareto. These distributions are fit to two key traffic parameters from real HSTN traffic traces (connection interarrival times and downloaded bytes), and their relative fits are compared using statistical techniques. We further compare traffic models built using these distributions in a simulated environment; comparing performance predictions (over a number of metrics) obtained from these models to the actual results from our real-world traffic traces.