Resource optimization over DVB-RCS satellite links through the use of SPDY

SPDY is a recent Web technology aimed to improve webpages load time and resource utilization, through the implementation of: multiplexing and prioritization of webpage objects, header compression, resource pushing and encryption. Most of these techniques are already implemented in Performance Enhancing Proxies (PEPs), which are adopted in geostationary satellite systems to optimize TCP-based application performance. Thus, SPDY is expected to provide benefits for satellite communications resource management. This paper provides a careful assessment of SPDY performance over satellite links, compliant to DVB-RCS standard, with return link resources assigned on demand through a Demand Assignment Multiple Access (DAMA) method. Such a reference scenario constitutes a challenging communication environment due to both the limited return link bandwidth and the relatively high latency. Performance evaluation has been carried out through a satellite network emulator, which reproduces physical layer satellite impairments, while running real implementations of both TCP/IP stack and SPDY.