Virtual Private Networks over Satellite Communication Systems in Support of Secure Telemedical Communication in Expeditionary Environments

Abstract

While the U.S. Military continues to deploy around the world, the need for medical support in austere environments remains. The ability to effectively fulfill this need is augmented by the use of telemedical support. The ability to effectively provide telemedical assistance from afar requires the use of satellite communications and often resorts to civilian service providers. This paper evaluates the efficacy of using satellite networks with the added security and privacy of virtual private networks (VPNs). We evaluate the performance impact of internet protocol security (IPsec), OpenVPN, and Wireguard when applied over a geostationary satellite provider, Viasat, and a low Earth orbit satellite provider, Starlink. We find that the implementation of VPNs induces a small but consistent performance impact on latency and a negligible impact on Inter-Packet Delay Variation. The implementation of a VPN results in a reduction in throughput, especially in download throughput. We specifically find that OpenVPN has the largest impact on throughput with Wireguard providing the highest overall throughput. IPsec is the most consistently performing VPN and is our recommendation for enterprise applications.