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Project I
Research on Internet Infrastructure Technology for Wide Area Environment

Interview video about this project

Name of Researcher:
Jun MURAI
Professor, the Faculty of Environmental Information,
and the Graduate School of Media & Governance, Keio University (Group Leader)

Hiroyuki KUSUMOTO
Associated Professor, the Faculty of Environmental Information

Osamu NAKAMURA
Associated Professor, the Faculty of Environmental Information

Noriyuki SHIGECHIKA
Lecturer, the Faculty of Environmental Information

Masaki MINAMI
Lecturer, the Faculty of Environmental Information

Haruhito WATANABE
Research Associate, the Graduate School of Media & Governance

Achmad Husni Thamrin
the Graduate School of Media & Governance

Mikiyo NISHIDA
the Graduate School of Media & Governance

Shunsuke FUJIEDA
the Graduate School of Media & Governance


Outline of Research:
This research project performs studies on the technologies to build a wide area satellite Internet infrastructure. Satellite links have the characteristics that are better for wide area broadcasting/multicasting compared to terrestrial telecommunication infrastructure such as telephone lines. The establishment of a wide area Internet infrastructure using satellite links enables Internet connectivity in developing countries where Internet connectivity using only terrestrial communication infrastructure is difficult. Using satellite links also enables large-scale wide-area multicast communication services.

This research project is the first in the world to use real satellite links as a wide-area Internet backbone, connecting developing countries in the South-East Asia. It studies the technological hurdles of satellite Internet using this backbone as a testbed. This project carried out the studies by providing new services to users, such as large-scale multicast, and receiving feedback from the users.


Details of the Research:
This research project performs studies on the technologies to build a wide area satellite Internet infrastructure. Satellite links have the characteristics that are better for wide area broadcasting/multicasting compared to terrestrial telecommunication infrastructure such as telephone lines. The establishment of a wide area Internet infrastructure using satellite links enables Internet connectivity in developing countries where Internet connectivity using terrestrial communication infrastructure only is difficult. Using satellite links also enables large-scale wide-area multicast communication services. However, satellite links are expensive and the bandwidth is narrower compared to terrestrial links.

There are two main categories of research in this project:
  • Technology developments to minimize the drawbacks of satellite links in users' perspective
  • Technology developments in new services and possibilities of using satellite links as a communication infrastructure for the Internet
The first category includes these items:
  • Development of a dynamic satellite bandwidth allocation based on the actual traffic
  • Research on the suitable QoS mechanisms for an Internet backbone using satellite links
  • Technology developments for receive only stations, unidirectional links over satellite, and asymmetric bandwidth network when combined with terrestrial infrastructure.
The second category includes these items:
  • Studies on how to use PIM-SM on unidirectional links over satellite
  • SSM (Source Specific Multicast) development
    This research project uses real satellite links as a wide-area Internet backbone, connecting developing countries in the South-East Asia. It studies the technological hurdles of satellite Internet using this backbone as a testbed. This research project established AI3 Project (Asian Internet Interconnection Initiatives Project, http://www.ai3.net/) to conduct research on and operation of this testbed with the collaboration with researches from South-East Asian countries. The AI3 Project partners are universities and national research institutes in South-East Asian countries.

    The AI3 testbed is used not only for research and development activities, but it is also used as an operational Internet backbone for Internet users. This project carried out the research by developing new technologies, deploying them on the testbed for the users, and then received feedback from them. Research in using PIM-SM on satellite unidirectional links is one of the researches resulted from the collaboration with regular users in South-East Asian countries. SOI-ASIA Project (http://www.soi.wide.ad.jp/soi-asia/) uses the AI3 testbed to give lectures from universities in Japan to universities in South-East Asia using multicast. With this kind of network operation and collaboration with users, we can develop technologies that are effective and useful for the world.


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