MOSAIC : Piecing Together 5G and LEOs for NTN Integration Experimentation

Anand, Revika and Austin, Edward and Rotsos, Charalampos and Smith, Paul and Race, Nicholas (2025) MOSAIC : Piecing Together 5G and LEOs for NTN Integration Experimentation. In: LEO-NET '25: Proceedings of the 2025 3rd Workshop on LEO Networking and Communication :. ACM, New York, pp. 50-56. ISBN 9798400720901

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Abstract

Despite the rapid growth of 5G technologies, geographical network coverage remains a significant challenge. The impending decommissioning of legacy technologies such as 2/3G will compound this further. In certain areas - notably rural - it is anticipated that removing these technologies will result in a complete lack of service. To address this, standards bodies, such as 3GPP, have begun advancing toward 5G-and-beyond architectures incorporating Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs), most notably using Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations. These NTNs offer promising solutions to expand coverage and improve network resilience. However, these also introduce integration challenges due to satellite mobility, network characteristics, and deployment costs. To address these operational challenges, and to understand the impact of integrated 5G-NTN architectures on end-to-end performance, we propose MOSAIC (MObile-SAtellite Integration Cradle) , a novel end-to-end 5G-NTN integration emulation platform that can recreate the unique features and software of emerging mobile infrastructures. We model the NTN network characteristics using a Generalized Additive Model for Location, Scale, and Shape (GAMLSS), evaluating it against open-source satellite link measurement data from Starlink. Additionally, we assess the performance of the Multipath TCP (MPTCP) protocol during handover scenarios between TN and NTN, focusing on metrics such as throughput stability, failover latency, and service continuity.