NeTS: Enabling Large-Scale Visibility into Maritime LEO Satellite Internet

This project studies how Low Earth Orbit satellite (LEO) Internet performs on maritime vessels at sea. Vessels often depend on satellite Internet because they are far from land and cannot use normal wired or cellular networks. When the Internet connection is slow or stops working, it can affect passenger connectivity, navigation support, real-time weather updates, operational logistics, and emergency communications. This project develops ways to make maritime LEO Internet performance visible at a global scale without placing equipment on ships or recruiting vessel operators. The project is organized around three research aims. First, it will develop scalable methods to discover and attribute Internet-exposed LEO satellite endpoints associated with maritime vessels, using service-visible evidence such as domain names, certificates, hosted content, and external maritime data. Second, it will develop non-intrusive methods to measure bandwidth, latency, and outages while accounting for path changes, point-of-presence changes, inter-satellite links, and bottleneck ambiguity. Third, it will characterize how vessel movement, geographic location, distance from terrestrial infrastructure, and network routing shape the performance and reliability of maritime LEO satellite Internet. Reliable Internet connectivity remains limited in remote maritime environments, where satellite networks are often the only available means of communication. This project will provide new techniques for networking researchers, satellite network operators, maritime stakeholders, and policymakers to evaluate real-world satellite Internet performance at sea and identify reliability gaps. The project will produce measurement code and datasets that can support reproducible research and reduce redundant measurement traffic. The project will also support undergraduate research and expand access to advanced learning by incorporating geostationary, medium Earth orbit, and LEO satellite network concepts into networking education, helping prepare computer science and engineering students to study and improve future mobile satellite networks. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.