arXiv subjects

Mostafa Abdollahi

Publications and source records attributed to Mostafa Abdollahi.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

StarLoc: A Practical Approach to Encoding Geographic Locators in IPv6 for Starlink

LEO satellite networks such as Starlink provide Internet connectivity across continents, oceans, and airspace. IP geolocation providers map Starlink's IPv6 prefixes to locations mainly through its self-published GeoFeed. However, users may be far away from their assigned Points of Presence (PoPs), one label covers an entire prefix, and labels and PoP mappings can change while addresses stay the same. We characterize Starlink's IPv6 addressing using 925 historical GeoFeed snapshots (2024--2026), one year of PoP mappings, and over 7.9 million observed IPv6 addresses. Our findings reveal that customer prefixes lack clear geographic structure, prefix labels lie a median of 540km from their PoPs, and relabeling a single /40 can affect the reported locations of up to 65,536 possible /56 delegations. To address these challenges, we propose StarLoc, a geographic Locator--Identifier separation scheme that embeds terminal location into IPv6 addresses using a resolution-adaptive H3 Locator while preserving existing Starlink prefixes, /56 delegations, and stable Endpoint Identifiers. To balance accuracy and privacy, StarLoc reveals only cells with at least a certain number of terminals, and operators can cap resolution in sensitive regions or withhold location entirely. Unlike topology-based schemes, StarLoc encodes physical location and lets Locators follow moving users.

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arXiv2026

BIER-DC: Stateless Multicast for In-Orbit Space Data Centers in LEO Constellations

Emerging data-intensive space applications generate large volumes of data that must be processed, stored, replicated, and delivered efficiently. However, relying on terrestrial cloud regions can expose satellite data to high delivery latency and loss of timeliness due to intermittent satellite-to-ground visibility and limited access to ground infrastructure. Space Data Centers (SDCs), which organize collaborative satellites into logical compute and storage clusters, offer a promising approach for in-orbit data management and service continuity. In this paper, we first evaluate how satellite clustering with different sizes affects satellite visibility and gateway outage. We then propose BIER-DC, a stateless one-to-many communication protocol tailored for satellite-based SDCs. Unlike terrestrial multicast protocols designed for stable data center fabrics, BIER-DC decouples inter-SDC forwarding from intra-SDC delivery and encodes compact cluster-level forwarding information in packet headers. Comparative evaluations against BIER, BIER-TE, and Yeti show that BIER-DC significantly reduces packet-header length and byte-hop overhead, improving effective goodput and scalability for next-generation LEO space data centers.

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arXiv2025

BIER-Star: Stateless Geographic Multicast for Scalable Satellite-Terrestrial Integration

The rapid expansion of LEO satellite constellations has enabled an integrated terrestrial network and non-terrestrial network (TN-NTN), connecting diverse users such as aircraft, ships, and remote communities. These networks increasingly need a scalable and efficient multicast protocol for critical applications like emergency alerts, large-scale software updates, and real-time broadcasting. However, traditional multicast protocols, such as IP-based multicast and software-defined multicast approaches, introduce significant control overhead and struggle to adapt to the dynamic and mobile nature of satellite topologies. This paper presents BIER-Star, a stateless multicast protocol designed for the integrated TN-NTN. BIER-Star uses a two-layer geospatial gridding scheme (i.e., H3) to encode destinations as Earth- and space-cell identifiers rather than per-terminal addresses. This cell-based abstraction shortens the header bitstring, simplifies forwarding, and eliminates per-flow state and complex signaling. Our simulations indicate that BIER-Star reduces header size versus BIER and avoids geographic path-finding failures seen in greedy methods.

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arXiv2020

Opportunistic Routing Metrics: A Timely One-Stop Tutorial Survey

High-speed, low latency, and heterogeneity features of 5G, as the common denominator of many emerging and classic wireless applications, have put wireless technology back in the spotlight. Continuous connectivity requirement in low-power and wide-reach networks underlines the need for more efficient routing over scarce wireless resources, in multi-hp scenarios. In this regard, Opportunistic Routing (OR), which utilizes the broadcast nature of wireless media to provide transmission cooperation amongst a selected number of overhearing nodes, has become more promising than ever. Crucial to the overall network performance, which nodes to participate and where they stand on the transmission-priority hierarchy, are decided by user-defined OR metrics embedded in OR protocols. Therefore, the task of choosing or designing an appropriate OR metric is a critical one. The numerousness, proprietary notations, and the objective variousness of OR metrics can cause the interested researcher to lose insight and become overwhelmed, making the metric selection or design effort-intensive. While there are not any comprehensive OR metrics surveys in the literature, those who partially address the subject are non-exhaustive and lacking in detail. Furthermore, they offer limited insight regarding related taxonomy and future research recommendations. In this paper, starting with a custom tutorial with a new look to OR and OR metrics, we devise a new framework for OR metric design. Introducing a new taxonomy enables us to take a structured, investigative, and comparative approach to OR metrics, supported by extensive simulations. Exhaustive coverage of OR metrics, formulated in a unified notation, is presented with sufficient details. Self-explanatory, easy-to-grasp, and visual-friendly quick references are provided, which can be used independently from the rest of the paper.

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