Abstract
Planning and provisioning satellite communications (SATCOM) services for the US Department of Defense (DoD) requires careful consideration SATCOM's role as an element of the global information grid (GIG). To assist in this process we present a reference model that describes the DoD SATCOM networks in terms of the network services that they provide. The reference model includes current and emerging satellite network services and identifies the networking architectures used for integrating satellite communications networks with local area networks (LAN) and wide area networks (WAN). The reference model includes broadcast, Internet access, local area network (LAN) interconnection, and wide area network (WAN) interconnection satellite services. The reference model provides descriptions of the functional characteristics and networking characteristics of the nodes supporting each of the satellite networking services. The communication link characteristics and particular air interfaces and networking protocols such as TCP/IP, ATM, and DVB are also described in the reference model. Finally, areas are identified were there is a lack of standardization, and recommendations are provided for how the reference model could be used in architectural planning.