Abstract
Next-generation communication networks are expected to integrate
newly-used technologies in a smart way to ensure continuous connectivity
in rural areas and to alleviate the traffic load in dense regions. The
prospective access network in 6G should hinge on satellite systems to
take advantage of their wide coverage and high capacity. However,
adopting satellites in 6G could be hindered because of the {additional
latency introduced}, which is not tolerable by all traffic types.
Therefore, we propose a traffic offloading scheme that integrates both
the satellite and terrestrial networks to smartly allocate the traffic
between them while satisfying different traffic requirements.
Specifically, the proposed scheme offloads the Ultra-Reliable Low
Latency Communication (URLLC) traffic to the terrestrial backhaul to
satisfy its stringent latency requirement. However, it offloads the
enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) traffic to the satellite since eMBB
needs high data rates but is not always sensitive to delay. Our scheme
is shown to reduce the transmission delay of URLLC packets, decrease the
number of dropped eMBB packets, and hence improve the network’s
availability. Our findings highlight that the inter-working between
satellite and terrestrial networks is crucial to mitigate the expected
high load on the limited terrestrial capacity.