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The current shift toward the virtualization of network infrastructure components enables a dynamic instantiation, deployment and configuration of virtual network functions (VNFs), which can be offered "as-a-service" to multiple tenants, thus enabling 5G architectures. Simultaneously, the recent high throughput satellite (HTS) systems can play an important role in the 5G era thanks to their characteristics, such as their large coverage, fast deployment of the ground infrastructure and native broadcast/multicast broadband capabilities. In this context, this paper proposes a review of the satellite service delivery models in order to identify viable alternatives to deploy converged satellite-terrestrial services. This objective is pursued by taking as a reference a satellite-assisted IP streaming service for the enhancement of current Content Delivery Network (CDN) infrastructures, as tackled by the European Space Agency within the SHINE ("Secure Hybrid In Network caching Environment") project. SHINE aims at efficiently extending terrestrial CDN services to satellite-enabled scenarios, by designing innovative mechanisms for the secure distribution of real-time multimedia information across hybrid channels, leveraging both unicast and multicast communication paradigms. The original contribution of the paper is the analysis of satellite architectures and configurations tailored to efficiently support the SHINE solution, together with a high-level applicability assessment taking into account different satellite-enabled service models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current shift toward the virtualization of network infrastructure components enables a dynamic instantiation, deployment and configuration of virtual network functions (VNFs), which can be offered "as-a-service" to multiple tenants, thus enabling 5G architectures. Simultaneously, the recent high throughput satellite (HTS) systems can play an important role in the 5G era thanks to their characteristics, such as their large coverage, fast deployment of the ground infrastructure and native broadcast/multicast broadband capabilities. In this context, this paper proposes a review of the satellite service delivery models in order to identify viable alternatives to deploy converged satellite-terrestrial services. This objective is pursued by taking as a reference a satellite-assisted IP streaming service for the enhancement of current Content Delivery Network (CDN) infrastructures, as tackled by the European Space Agency within the SHINE ("Secure Hybrid In Network caching Environment") project. SHINE aims at efficiently extending terrestrial CDN services to satellite-enabled scenarios, by designing innovative mechanisms for the secure distribution of real-time multimedia information across hybrid channels, leveraging both unicast and multicast communication paradigms. The original contribution of the paper is the analysis of satellite architectures and configurations tailored to efficiently support the SHINE solution, together with a high-level applicability assessment taking into account different satellite-enabled service models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New scenarios and use cases are raising following the birth of the fifth generation of mobile communications. The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the main use cases which are growing, leading to a massive amount of data that need to be exchanged throughout the Internet. Satellite communication networks are essential in remote and isolated environments and can support fully connected environments by offloading the terrestrial infrastructure concerning delay–tolerant traffic flows. However, satellite network resources are limited and expensive, so they need to be carefully used in order to avoid waste and satisfy the required user performance. The multi-access edge computing (MEC) concept can be exploited in this context to allow data preprocessing at the edge, i.e., close to the users, so reducing the amount of data that has to traverse the backhaul satellite link and, in some cases, reducing data delivery times. This article analyses the performance of a satellite architecture in the IoT framework highlighting the advantages brought by MEC, also including data aggregation and compression techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability of network softwarization and virtualization technology in the field of telecommunications has opened the door to a radical review of the applications, protocols, and deployment models. In this evolving framework, old assumptions and constraints specific to satellite communications must be carefully re-assessed. To this aim, we revisit the role of the performance enhancing proxy (PEP), replaced by a chain of custom virtual network functions properly enabled to optimize common web traffic performance over a backhaul dynamically enabled with a supplementary satellite link. The resulting virtual PEP (vPEP) is compliant with the breakthrough virtualization and slicing paradigms and can fruitfully exploit the advanced features of the most recent IETF technologies such as QUIC and MPTCP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immersive technology is expected to become a key player in the next wave of consumer electronics with potential applications spanning a wide variety of sectors. Yet, there are a number of technological hurdles which need to be addressed. Without speed and computation capability, interactivity cannot be ensured. More than often the constrained nature of the mobile device demands is complemented by cloud ones through the use of cloud offloading techniques. With cloud offloading, battery consumption and processing performance problems are translated into sensor data selection and network latency problems. In this context, we focus our study on some functional building blocks that can be used in conjunction and deployed in a 5G virtualized architecture to alleviate bandwidth and latency requirements of immersive application scenarios. To this end, we have created an experimental scenario exploiting real data to test our combined solution based on the field of view cut and optimized transport protocols, discussing the tradeoffs that emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]