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.

Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellite networks are expanding broadband access, but major Real-Time Communication (RTC) platforms, including Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, still rely on service-point selection mechanisms that appear to be largely shaped by terrestrial-network assumptions. As a result, they may not consistently account for LEO-specific dynamics such as satellite topology and Point-of-Presence (PoP) changes, especially during in-flight connectivity. To characterize RTC service-point selection over Starlink, we measure RTC performance using a Canada-wide testbed and more than 24 hours of in-flight experiments. Our results show clear platform differences. Google Meet tends to align more closely with the serving PoP, consistent with broader observed edge coverage. Zoom follows a regional service-point selection pattern, while Microsoft Teams often remains tied to fixed service points. Moreover, we show that in-flight PoP handovers can shift traffic egress points mid-session, and that RTC platforms respond differently to these changes. In some cases, this interaction leads to suboptimal service-point selections and RTT inflation. Overall, our findings suggest that LEO connectivity can expose mismatches between Starlink egress dynamics and RTC service-point selection, motivating further measurement and LEO-optimized designs for service placement and selection.

Integrating terrestrial networks together with non-terrestrial networks, such as Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, can significantly enhance network reliability and reduce latency in unicast and multicast protocols. To use such a capability and reduce end-to-end latency, many transport-layer unicast protocols, such as Multipath TCP (MPTCP) and Multipath QUIC (MPQUIC), have adopted multi-connectivity (MC) by transmitting over multiple interfaces at the sender host. However, traditional and modern multicast protocols suppose that the sender host accesses the core network using a single path, leading to high end-to-end latency at destinations. In this regard, we first demonstrate in a real-world testbed that MC significantly improves network latency in multicasting compared to single-connectivity approaches. We then introduce a Bit Indexed Explicit Replication (BIER) Multi-Connectivity (BIER-MC) method designed to reduce end-to-end latency within the BIER protocol, as a modern multicast protocol. Our comparison indicates that BIER-MC outperforms traditional BIER implementations using multicast trees in terms of latency up to 5×, bandwidth usage up to 2.5×, and edge betweenness centrality up to 15×.

Topological attacks, including Sybil and wormhole attacks, modify a network topology by adding fake nodes and links to bypass typical routing paths, significantly degrading the Internet of Things (IoT) network performance. The presence of fake nodes and links introduces inconsistencies between the modified topology and the actual channel states of the nodes. Therefore, a fast and precise method for detecting topological attacks is crucial to identify and count these inconsistencies, which reveal the presence of an attack and affected nodes. In this paper, we propose a straightforward numerical metric called the Number of Channel Footprint Inconsistencies (NCFI) to count inconsistencies between nodes' transmission, reception, and idle states on the channel and the network topology. In the proposed method, each node reports its channel states to a central node, which uses a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP)-based approach in graph coloring to calculate the NCFI. Additionally, each pair of IoT nodes can use the NCFI in a distributed manner to detect the presence of fake links between them. Our simulation results indicate that the proposed method can accurately detect the presence of attackers in the network compared to the state-of-the-art methods.

The presence of a jammer in an Internet of Things (IoT) network severely degrades all communication efforts between adjacent wireless devices. The situation is getting worse due to retransmission attempts made by affected devices. Therefore, jammers must be detected or localized quickly to activate a series of corrective countermeasures so as to ensure the robust operation of the IoT network. This article proposes a novel metric called the number of jammed slots (NJSs). It can detect and localize both reactive and proactive jammers that follow arbitrary jamming attack patterns. NJS is applicable to all communication paradigms, such as unicast, broadcast, and multicast. In NJS, the wireless medium status is monitored by IoT devices and summarized reports are sent to a central node. Then, the central node determines the jamming duration, the affected nodes, and the approximate location of the jammer(s). Also, the specificity, precision, and accuracy of NJS are at least 48%, 19%, and 20% better than the other state-of-the-art statistical methods, respectively. In addition, in terms of the detection time, NJS is four times faster when detecting an active jammer in the network. It can also localize the jammer with less jammer localization errors.

An active jammer could severely degrade the communication quality for wireless networks. Since all wireless nodes openly access the shared media, the harsh effects are exaggerated by retransmission attempts of affected devices. Fast and precise detection of the jammer is of vital importance for heterogeneous wireless environments such as the Internet of things (IoT). It could activate a series of corrective countermeasures to ensure the robust operation of the network. In this paper, we propose a local, straightforward, and numerical metric called the number of jammed slots (NJS), by which we can quickly detect the presence of a jammer and identify the jammed nodes at the software level in broadcast networks. NJS calculation is carried out by a central node which collects the MAC-layer statuses of all wireless nodes in a periodical fashion. Our simulation results indicate that NJS outperforms current detection methods in terms of accuracy and precision.

Rapid growing on the power level of renewable generation units leads to that using more adaptable and flexible control techniques in this units becomes more important for grid operators. In this paper, after introducing Renewable Static Synchronous Generation Units (RSSGU) as units with flexible dynamics capability, forming of renewable Virtual Power Plants based on this RSSGUs (VPP-SSG) is suggested as a solution for overcoming phase stability challenges on interconnected generation areas. Based on the dynamic modeling and small signal analysis, an algorithm is presented for the dynamic designing of VPP-SSGs aims to provide supporting damping for both local and interarea oscillatory modes. Modal analysis and time domain study on active powers inside of generation areas and tie lines on two area system using Simulink confirms that these type of VPP-SSGs can support phase stability on power grid with interconnected generation areas.