Performance study of an integrated satellite/terrestrial mobile communication system

Terrestrial cellular networks and mobile satellite systems are expected to converge towards a future integrated satellite/terrestrial mobile communication network. Besides a system globalization, the integration of terrestrial and satellite mobile systems will lead to the unloading of the fixed part of the mobile network. This paper proposes an integrated satellite/terrestrial mobile communication system and evaluates its performance in terms of the blocking probability for new call attempts, the call dropping probability and the probability of unsuccessful call. This communication system was simulated and its performence compared with that of a stand-alone terrestrial mobile system. In the terrestrial part of the system we have considered fixed channel allocation (FCA) and dynamic channel allocation (DCA) techniques. Satellite channels can have equal or lower priority compared to terrestrial channels. The improvement of the system performance by means of satellite-to-terrestrial handovers was also estimated.