On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 2:45 PM Michael Thomas <[email protected]> wrote:
> I read in the Economist that the gen of starlink satellites will have > the ability to route messages between each satellite. Would conventional > routing protocols be up to such a challenge? Or would it have to be > custom made for that problem? And since a lot of companies and countries > are getting on that action, it seems like fertile ground for (bad) wheel > reinvention? > > Mike > > Unlike most terrestrial links, the distances between satellites are not fixed, and thus the latency between nodes is variable, making the concept of "Shortest Path First" calculation a much more dynamic and challenging one to keep current, as the latency along a path may be constantly changing as the satellite nodes move relative to each other, without any link state actually changing to trigger a new SPF calculation. I suspect a form of OLSR might be more advantageous in a dynamic partial mesh between satellites, but I haven't given it as much deep thought as would be necessary to form an informed opinion. So, yes--it's likely the routing protocol used will not be entirely "off-the-shelf" but will instead incorporate continuous latency information in the LSDB, and path selection will be time-bound based on the rate of increase in latency along currently-selected edges in the graph. An interesting problem to dive into, certainly. :) Thanks! Matt
