Satellite-Based Capillary 5G-mMTC Networks for Environmental Applications

Besides traditional 5G MBB and ULLRC services, 5G networks will also embody connections to billions of Internet of Things (IoT) objects. Future IoT 5G-mMTC applications for environmental monitoring, remote metering, and surveillance over metropolitan areas are among the main enablers of the Smart City concept. The role of satellite to transfer large amount of data gathered from (any type of) sensors spread over geographical metropolitan areas in a country can be helpful to promote the implementation of smart applications aimed for example to optimize usage of resources (e.g., energy), transportation flows, centralized control of critical infrastructures, etc., at a nation-wide scale. One of the main limitations of this scenario consists in the availability of sensors devices incorporating transmission facilities to directly connect to the satellite. In this paper, we assess the achievable performance of a FttC-based capillary network extended to include terrestrial radio stations (RSs) collecting data from surrounding IoT devices. RS data are then transferred using one (or more) copper pair(s) to the satellite modem installed at the cabinet as well as at the central office. Performance of the considered network architecture is expressed in terms of the blocking probability for satellite access.