NTN WAVE

Satellite communication systems are increasingly expected to support broadband, interactive, and delay-sensitive services. At the same time, 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) introduce a 3GPP-based alternative to conventional satellite communication technologies such as DVB-S2/RCS2. However, there is still a need for experimental evidence showing how these technologies compare under representative satellite conditions and for different application traffic types. This is the main motivation of NTN WAVE. 

A key challenge for the project is to establish comparable experimental conditions for the two technologies despite their different protocol stacks and system configurations. The team must configure representative GEO satellite conditions, including long propagation delay, varying link quality, bandwidth, modulation and coding settings, and retransmission behaviour, and then evaluate comparable performance indicators such as throughput, latency, jitter, BER/BLER and protocol overhead.

NTN WAVE will experimentally compare 5G NR NTN and DVB-S2/RCS2 under representative transparent GEO satellite conditions using the 6G-SANDBOX experimentation environment. The project will configure and test both technologies under comparable conditions, varying parameters such as bandwidth, modulation and coding, propagation delay, link quality/SNR and retransmission behaviour, while evaluating KPIs including throughput, latency, jitter, BER/BLER and protocol overhead. 

What makes the project particularly interesting is the experimental, side-by-side assessment of two different satellite communication approaches under controlled and comparable conditions. Rather than analysing the technologies only theoretically, NTN WAVE uses operational implementations based on OpenAirInterface5G and OpenSAND, allowing their behaviour to be observed for representative application traffic and system configurations. 

LIST’s role is to carry out the experimental integration, configuration, validation and performance assessment of the 5G NTN and DVB-based setups within the 6G-SANDBOX platform. In particular, LIST integrated and validated the OpenAirInterface5G NTN suite, worked with the OpenSAND environment, and performed the comparative experiments and KPI analysis.

NTN WAVE will deliver an integrated experimental setup and comparative performance assessment of 5G NR NTN and DVB-S2/RCS2 using OpenAirInterface5G and OpenSAND in the 6G-SANDBOX environment. The main outputs include the configured experimental platforms, comparative measurements for representative traffic types, KPI-based performance analysis, project deliverables, and dissemination of the results through a scientific publication. 

For industry, the project provides experimental evidence to support the selection and configuration of satellite communication technologies for different service requirements. By comparing the two approaches under similar GEO conditions, the results can help identify where 5G NTN or DVB-S2/RCS2 provides advantages in terms of latency variation, data-transfer performance and application responsiveness. For example, the experiments showed lower jitter for the tested 5G NTN configuration and higher file-download throughput, while lightweight webpage access showed similar performance for both technologies. 

Potential real-life applications include satellite broadband and content delivery, file and software downloads, web and cloud-service access, and video/streaming services over satellite links. The project results can therefore contribute to the design and optimisation of future satellite-enabled communication services, including emerging 5G NTN deployments.

• Project Website