Magister at ASMS 2025: Simulative comparison of DVB and 5G-NR NTN
February 24, 2025
This week, we are attending ASMS/SPSC 2025 to present our recent simulation results and connect with colleagues in the field of satellite communications. The 12th Advanced Satellite Multimedia Systems Conference and the 18th Signal Processing for Space Communications Workshop takes place in Sitges, Spain from February 26th to 28th.
Magister’s researcher Tuomas Huikko will present our new article in a paper session on Wednesday the 26th. The article is titled “Simulative Comparison of DVB-S2X/RCS2 and 3GPP 5G NR NTN Technologies in a Geostationary Satellite Scenario.”
Fair comparison between DVB and 5G-NR NTN achieved through simulations
Our paper presents a thorough performance comparison between DVB Second Generation Satellite Extensions (DVB-S2X), DVB Return Channel via Satellite 2nd Generation (DVB-RCS2), and 5G-NR NTN in a Geostationary Orbit (GEO) satellite scenario, utilizing Ka-band frequencies (20 GHz for downlink, 30 GHz for uplink).
We used the Satellite Network Simulator 3 (SNS3) and ALIX 5G TN-NTN simulators for evaluating these technologies. They are both built on the same Network Simulator 3 (ns-3) platform. We were able to establish a fair comparison between the technologies, based on 3GPP calibration scenarios and models defined for NR NTN.
Many current and former Magisterians collaborated on these simulations and co-authored this paper. Its authors include Tuomas Huikko, Verneri Rönty, Erno Seppänen, Sami Rantanen, Frans Laakso, Vesa Hytönen, Lauri Sormunen, Mikko Majamaa and Jani Puttonen.
Key findings: DVB vs. 5G-NR NTN performance
- DVB-S2X consistently achieved higher throughput than the NR Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) in the downlink (DL) direction. However, under lower system loads, the performance of the technologies is almost equal.
- NR PDSCH can provide similar performance for bursty traffic in terms of delay, despite lower peak system capacity. This is partially due to the transmission of dummy frames in DVB-S2X, limiting the resulting signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR).
- In the uplink (UL) direction, NR Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) performed generally better than DVB-RCS2 across all evaluated scenarios – despite similar link level performance. This performance gap was especially pronounced with lower system loads.
- Comparison for the UL is generally more complicated. It’s affected by various factors like power control, radio resource management, and adaptive modulation and coding. Therefore, the end result depends on the use case and satellite system specifics.
- These results seem to be relatively consistent with other sources, comparing the performance of the technologies.
You can read a preprint version of the paper with more detailed findings here.
Networking within the SatCom community and discussing NTN within future 6G systems
ASMS/SPSC 2025 is an excellent opportunity for networking with colleagues from the satellite communications community – both from academia and the industry.
Overall, the conference will include various interesting keynote speeches, tutorials and paper sessions with a special focus on the role of non-terrestrial networks (NTN) within future 6G systems.
This is a highly relevant topic for us at Magister, as we are actively involved in 3GPP work that discusses the standardization of 5G-NR NTN. This simulative comparison is one example of this work. We have developed our simulators to be able to explore future technologies like 5G-Advanced and 6G NTN, for example, as part of the EAGER project.
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